


Lupercalia

by PsychoMantis



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Anal Sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Biting, Blood, Blood Drinking, Blood Kink, Blood and Injury, Consensual Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Gay Sex, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Knotting, Licking, Love Bites, M/M, Mating Bites, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Violence, Oral Sex, Police, Porn, Resolved Sexual Tension, Rough Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Scents & Smells, Semi-Public Sex, Sex, Sexual Content, Sexual Exhaustion, Sexual Tension, Shower Sex, Smut, Vampire Bites, Vampire Sex, Vampires, Violence, Werewolf Biology, Werewolf Bites, Werewolf Sex, Werewolves, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2018-12-18 14:17:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11876289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsychoMantis/pseuds/PsychoMantis
Summary: Sebastian Castellanos is his own one-man K9 Unit.While using his werewolf powers for good, he catches a real, live Vampire- the cause of a frustrating series of minor crimes that Sebastian's been desperate to stop.Trying to find a way to end the fear and confusion of a vampire haunting his city WITHOUT killing anyone, Sebastian makes an unlikely deal and gets himself in deep, literally and figuratively.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the incredibly basic AU I work on when I'm trying to keep myself motivated (it works). 
> 
> This is essentially finished, but I'll be posting it in parts while I edit large swathes of it.
> 
> EDIT: OH MY GOD I'm sorry this posted 29 fucking times????! !!??!

A paper, clenched in a meaty fist, slammed onto Sebastian’s desk. Kidman startled from across the room. 

“Another one,” Chief huffed. “Man assaulted on Fourth and Lehigh.”

“Let me guess,” Kidman said,”Alive, unhurt, really pissed?”

“Nailed it, Kidman. You and Castellanos get over there now, maybe he can tell us something that’ll let us catch the next one sooner. 

Chief prodded the report on the desk and turned to go. “I want this solved, and soon! If these incidents get any worse, we’re going to have a lot of questions to answer. This gets priority.”

Sebastian and Kidman rolled their eyes at each other and stood, shouldering their bags as the door swung shut loudly behind Chief.

 

—

 

“This is annoying,” Kidman said.

Sebastian flicked his cigarette out the window and glanced over the steering wheel at her. “What’s up?”

“This case. Half the department and most of the city freaking out over someone who definitely isn’t killing anyone.” 

“That we know of.”

Kidman threw her hands up. “No injuries, not a drop of blood. They were all just spooked, and drunk. Why does this get priority, exactly?” 

“Chief said this guy was assaulted. Maybe it’s escalating?”

“Or maybe we’re on a wild goose chase trying to catch a person who doesn’t exist that a bunch of freaked out club kids are imagining. We’re overreacting, and it’s getting the public riled up.”

Sebastian pulled up to the address and cut the engine, shrugging in the general direction of the window.

“What?” Kidman said, narrowing her eyes. “I know that look; you’re sulking.”

He snorted and crossed his arms. “It’’s nothing. Like you said…overreacting.”

“Out with it, Sebastian." 

“I think the case is serious, okay? I think there’s more to it, and we just haven’t found it yet.”

Kidman tucker her hair behind her ear with an angry flourish. “Oh, god. Is this-“ she lowered her voice, as if someone might hear outside the car, “-is this one of your dog things?”

There were days Sebastian regretted that she was the only person that knew his lycanthropic little secret. “Do you have to say it like that every time?”

“So you’ve been out howling around the city unsupervised again, hm?”

“I do not howl-“

“You want me to pull up the noise complaints, buddy?

Sebastian, we’ve talked about this. You’re not supposed to go gallivanting around- how am I supposed to be sure you’re not the one tackling people and rushing off into the night? Would you even remember?”

“Don’t be patronizing,” Sebastian grimaced, showing teeth that were just a little too sharp to be natural. “I was doing it for the case; of course I’d remember!”

Kidman crossed her arms and tilted her head towards him. “Breaking the rules for the case, huh? So what did you find that’s got you so paranoid?”

Sebastian stared out the window. “I…I smelled something. It was…wrong. Weird.”

“You’re a sniffer dog now. So what was the smell?”

“Idunno, it was just, like…” Sebastian milled his hands wildly, “like bad, wrong. Like another-“

“Another werewolf?” Kidman sounded tense.

“Sort of? Uh, I mean, it’s the same kind of wrong, but like…it’s not.

“That’s your big lead, huh? ‘Something smells bad, let me just get big and hairy, and if I run around the city scaring people, I bet I’ll find what’s been scaring people!’”

“Do you have anything else to go on right now?”

“Well, we could always go and talk to the victim before you decide to Scooby Doo the problem.” Kidman prodded her window, indicating a nervous looking gentleman in business-casual. “That’ll be the guy.”

 

—

 

Sebastian and Kidman flashed their badges at the man as they approached. He was shadowed by the mouth of an alley, sandwiched between a seedy bar with red velvet drapes, and a dance cub spangled with neon lights that were flashing obnoxiously even in the mid-day sunlight.

Kidman nudged Sebastian before they drew up within earshot of the man. “Remember, no mentioning any of the other disturbances.”

“Mr. Everett?” Kidman offered her hand.

Mr. Everett only nodded, looking at the offered hand as if it were a coiled serpent. She dropped her hand.

“I’m Detective Kidman, and this is my partner Detective Castellanos. We’re here to talk to you about the incident last night?”

Mr. Everett nodded.

Sebastian completed the semicircle of awkward shuffling that the trio had made.

“So…this is were the incident occurred?” Kidman said, looking back and forth across the narrow alley.

Mr. Everett nodded again.

Sebastian cleared his throat loudly. “Okay, so, last night someone snuck up on you outside this bar and-“

“It was in the alley,” Mr. Everett said, his voice thin and reedy.

Kidman blinked and read over the report she’d been holding as though it had said something particularly offensive. “That’s not what the report says.”

“Maybe I forgot,” Mr. Everett said, “I was- I was nervous.”

“So what happened in the alleyway?” Sebastian said. “Someone snuck up on you-“

“He bit me!” Mr. Everett said, just a little too loudly.

Sebastian and Kidman exchanged a look of wary disbelief.

“You report didn’t say that either,” Kidman said. “Why didn’t you report that?”

Mr. Everett’s face had turned a peculiar shade of red. His eyes flicked back and forth, tellingly, to the bar on the other side of him with the blaring neon. Sebastian followed his gaze and frowned.

“You were at that bar,” Sebastian said, pointing, “the gay bar. That’s why you didn’t tell the officers the right location.”

Kidman rolled her report up. “And nobody snuck up on you, you met the person- the man- in the alleyway when he bit you, unexpectedly. That’s why you lied on the report, because you were embarassed-“

“Does it matter?” Mr. Everett’s voice exploded, thin and high with encroaching hysteria. “Why do those things matter? Just look!”

He pulled his button-up shirt apart, popping one of the buttons and exposing a bruised patch and small, shallow cut across his collarbone.

“Those things matter,” Kidman said darkly, “because they change what we’re looking for drastically. And with all due respect, that doesn’t look like a bite wound to me. It looks like a small knife, or-“

Everett shuddered. “It’s-it’s teeth they weren’t” he threw his hands up and let them fall helplessly to his sides. “They weren’t normal.”

Sebastian cocked an eyebrow. “You’re sure this came from teeth, and not a knife, or sharp nails, or-“

“I’m sure!” Everett squeaked, “There were- it was warm, and-and- wet and oh god it was definitely a mouth!”

“Okay, okay, calm down. What did he look like?” Kidman said.

Everett shook his head. “It was all in black and- hooded I think?”

“This man lured you into an alley and you have no idea what he looked like?” Sebastian said.

Everett turned a more purple shade of red.

“So where did he got after he…bit you?” Sebastian said.

“I don’t know,” Everett said, “It just hurt, and I think I screamed, and whoosh-“ he made motion with his hand. “Nothing there. If I weren’t bleeding, even I would have thought I had imagined it.”

Kidman raised an eyebrow. “Sir, you had been at a bar. How can you be sure that you didn’t just imagine it, or that you’re misremembering a more mundane incident?”

Everett scowled. “What are you implying?”

“I’m implying that it’s not out of the question that you were drunk, attempted to, ah, meet up with this man, got bit, misunderstood his intentions and panicked.” Kidman said.

“This is- did they send you two here just to try and make a fool of me?”

“Sir, given that you can’t remember what he looked like, intoxication isn’t out of the question.” Sebastian said.

“Technically, you falsified a report to the police, Mr. Everett. That makes everything you say somewhat suspect.”

“I can’t believe this!” Mr. Everett said, stomping a few feet away. “Neither of you are taking me- taking this seriously!”

“I’m taking it seriously enough to question whether or not what you’re telling us is true.” Sebastian said gravely, drawing his shoulders up.

“I can’t- you know what? Fuck this!” He stormed off, muscling his way through passers-by and quickly melting into the crowds of business suits and crisp professionalism.

Sebastian crumpled his report in one hand and tossed it down the alley. “Laid it on a bit thick there, didn’t ya?”

Kidman shrugged. “I don’t want him thinking we’re taking him seriously. The more people catch on, the harder it’ll be for us to tell hysterics from victims.”

“You believe him?”

“I was gonna ask you that. You pick up on anything?”

“Just that he’s embarrassed, and annoying to listen to.”

Kidman hit Sebastian with her rolled up report. “How did he smell, you dumb mutt? Like saliva? Beer? A knife?”

“Oh,” Sebastian said, looking sheepish. “Wait, I thought you were under the impression that I was full of shit?”

Kidman hit him again.

“Jeez, okay.” Sebastian paused, sniffing at the air experimentally. “Actually, he did smell…off. Weird. Like…” His eyes widened. “Like I smelled the other night.”

“That’s it? No heavy alcohol? No spit?”

“I don’t think so? It doesn’t work as well when I’m not…y’know. Wolfier?”

Kidman scrubbed at her cheek. “So, I’m calling this a midnight operation now. Go feral, hang around here, and see if you’re big wet nose is right and the smell is related to this whole weird mess.”

“Weren’t you just lecturing me on how I wasn’t supposed to do that at all?”

“Yeah, well, now we’ve got whoever actually going out and hurting people. I don’t want to wait around bickering with drunk victims while they work up the nerve to finally kill someone.”

Kidman tapped her heel as Sebastian leaned against the driver’s side door, lighter scratching as he flicked it. “I’m willing to take a chance on you, wolf boy. Don’t fuck it.”

Sebastian nodded and dropped into the driver’s seat, blowing smoke out the window as Kidman got in. “Hey Kid?”

“Yeah?”

“What do you think a knife smells like, exactly?”

“Oh, shut up.”

 

— 

 

Sebastian’s cellphone blared directly into his ear. He slapped it and fumbled the buttons until something connected, and grumbled into the receiver.

“Wake up call, Rover,” Kidman’s voice came over the line.

“Fuck,” Sebastian said, heaving his protesting body upright, “already?”

“You still wanna do this?”

“Pretty sure I’ve got to,” he said, crossing over the window.

Sebastian parted the blinds with his thumb and forefinger and moonlight fell across his nose. His skin suddenly felt hot, crawling like it was too tight over his muscles; he sucked in a breath and pushed away from the window as if he’d been struck.

“Moon’s not full, but it’s sure out tonight,” Kidman said cheerfully.

“Is it? Hadn’t noticed,” Sebastian’s jaw tightened, teeth scraping together as if they no longer fit into his mouth.

“Good luck out there, Lassie. Make sure you call me and let me know what you find. And remember the rules! Stay high, away from people-“

“-No howling, no growling, no blood,” Sebastian finished. “Yeah, yeah. Talk to you later.”

He stuffed his phone in his pocket and tore his shirt off over his head, stinging pain lancing through him as his body shuddered and pulled. He’d held off the change for too long already.

The window flew open with a cracking of plastic and Sebastian flung his contorted body onto the fire escape landing. The metal squealed and groaned as he charged up the steps, each footfall hitting heavier and eliciting a lout, metallic squeal.

By the time Sebastian had leapt up and hauled himself onto the apartment building’s roof, he was only barely recognizable as human. “Passably human,” Kidman had called it. He’d thought she was being overly generous.

He thought he looked more like an alarmingly well-made prop for a werewolf made-for-tv slasher flick- human generally, but bigger, furrier, with flashing yellow eyes, an upturned and lupine nose, pointed ears, claws, and vicious looking teeth that jutted from his elongated jaw.

“Grotesque,” he’d called it. Monstrous, but not as monstrous as he was on the full moon.

The full moon was the only time he had no choice but to transform, but none of the transformations were ever entirely willing. As soon as the cold moonlight seared his skin and he felt the tearing sensation begin, pinpricks and razorblades in his joints, his mind had clouded, scattered before his body tore itself apart in a symphony of burning pain as it expanded, reformed, twisted.

The best he could do to avoid it was to lock himself in, shut the curtains, and try to ignore the way the moon pulled at him.

Sebastian stretched, feeling the alien way his limbs stretched from him like phantom extensions. His claws skittered across the rooftop as, in a few short leaps, he cleared the building’s roof and landed on the adjacent building. His tongue lolled from his mouth as he continued to run, cool wind whipping his hair and stinging at his eyes.

It took a few deep breaths to try and center himself, to ignore the taunting melange of city smells and sounds and remember where he was going. He saw the street in his mind, tried to remember its smell, and launched himself in that direction.

The familiar smell hit him as he hopped from roof to roof downtown, his mind briefly empty in the exultant freedom of running and the roaring din of noise down below. It slammed into him like a physical force, bringing back the memory of his mission.

It was definitely the same smell- sharp and strange in a way no human being or human endeavor could smell. It was heavy like a perfume; petrichor, brackish water, moss, river mud, vanilla, and seaspray, all wrapped up in something deep and heady that Sebastian was surprised he was at a complete loss to describe.

It was not, he admitted to himself, an unpleasant smell.

Sebastian peered over the rooftop of the mill building he perched on, sniffing downward and upward, trying to catch a thread of that scent he could follow. He found it three buildings over, the thumping music of the club underneath him feeling like it was syncing with his heartbeat. It was almost a visual thing, the smell, like a tiny streak of light in the back of his mind that flared brighter with each inhale.

It was definitely a very pleasant smell, Sebastian thought. He swallowed against the way his stomach twisted and the back of his neck prickled as the scent gradually intensified. How could something that pleasant be whatever violent thing it was he was trying to catch?

He shook his head, trying to shake animal thoughts loose from his animal mind. He dropped down into an empty alley- the same alley from earlier, he realized- and crouched behind a big green city dumpster. The smell of his quarry managed to compete with the rank odor of the garbage.

Whatever it was, it had to be nearby.

Sebastian craned his neck to watch the alleyway’s narrow entrance, lit by strobing green and purple from the dance clubs that surrounded it on either side. Heels clicked in an endless succession back and forth, people in sequins, torn nylon, and fragrant leather milling in clusters back and forth, trailing an endless train of cigarette smoke.

Minutes stretched into hours. Bit by bit the acrid smell of vomit and alcohol intensified around him, crowds of people thinning into pairs. Sebastian yawned, teeth slicing together noisily, and supposed he’d ought to leave. He didn’t want to, of course- he could still smell what he was looking for, didn’t want to risk losing it now.

Sunrise would be in a few hours. Staggering figures slurred and dropped into cabs one by one, until the street was almost quiet. A man with a loose ponytail and an open button-up shirt stumbled into the alley, mumbling and wafting the smell of vodka and cheap cologne. Sebastian stood and stretched, ready to scramble up the dumpster and make his escape.

Then, that tantalizing scent punched against his senses, drowning him in it. Another man followed close behind the first one, held loosely onto his wrist; his face was obscured by a black hood pulled low from under his black denim jacket. Sebastian curled his hands into fists, trembling with the effort it took to not bolt out from his hiding place.

“C’mere,” the man with the ponytail said, grinning and wrapping his arms around the second man’s hips. Sebastian ducked back down, cheeks flushing at the unmistakable sound of mouths being pressed together hungrily. His ears burned with each wet, smacking sound and the soft moaning sounds that would have been silent to anyone else.

“Mmph-ow, fuck!” The sharp scent of blood hit Sebastian and he peeked out again to see the ponytailed man shove the other one away.

“What is your problem-“ Ponytail shouted. Faster than Sebastian could blink, the hooded man lunged forward, cutting off the other’s outrage and pinning him to the brick wall with his face buried against the other man’s neck.

Sebastian had broken his cover well before the smell of fresh blood fouled the alley’s air. His claws swung straight for the hooded man, teeth bared- but the moment he should have connected, there was only a rush of air and the retreat of the scent he had been chasing. A streak of shadow crested the building’s roof.

The man in the ponytail screamed below, the sound getting smaller behind Sebastian as he scaled the wall, chunks of brick flaking off under his claws. He sprinted on all fours, eyes closed and focused on the bright banner that the man’s scent trailed after him. His prey was a black blur of movement ahead of him, the scent getting stronger with each desperate leap Sebastian made across the city rooftops.

The city lights blurred around him, all of his senses seeming to tunnel into a direct path towards his prey. Saliva drooled from Sebastian’s jaws; each stride brought him closer, he could hear the man’s movements, could smell him getting closer, and closer-

Their bodies collided with a soft _whump_. Sebastian’s gnashed his teeth furiously, catching mouthfuls of tearing flesh before latching onto the fabric of his jacket and slamming his hands down to pin the man’s shoulders underneath him.

There was an inhuman snarling sound, and the man’s fingernails were clawing at Sebastian’s arms with unnatural strength, leaving bleeding gashes in their wake. His knee connected with Sebastian’s stomach, knocking the air out of him and loosing his grip on the man. 

Sebastian lunged wildly, a rolling growl rumbling from him as his jaws caught onto the stranger’s shoulder. He yelped when the stranger’s fist connected with his jaw and Sebastian grasped blindly for the man’s body; he caught him by the neck.

Sebastian held him at arms length, eyeing him and trying to determine if this frail-looking thing with such brute strength could find a way to knock himself free again. He tore at Sebastian’s hand, a strangled hiss bubbling out of him.

Sebastian was fairly certain that no human being could have fought like that, or hurt him that badly. He had to be some kind of creature- he was small, like a human, with human-frail limbs. His skin however was so unnaturally pale that if he weren’t actively trying to kill Sebastian, he would have guessed the creature was sick, or dying.

The only things that really belied the creature’s inhumanity were his pallor, the subtle points of his ears, the unnerving liquor-dark blackness of his eyes and, most notably, the savagely sharp canines that protruded from his snarling mouth.

“What are you?” Sebastian said, turning the creature’s body this way and that.

He had dark hair combed back in a way that wouldn’t have been out of place in a 50’s office, and thick-framed black glasses that were almost comical compared to his capacity for violence. With his hood pulled back, Sebastian could see the high cheekbones that accentuated the hollows of his cheeks, and almost obscenely elegant, curved lips.

Sebastian blinked, feeling his stomach roll and clench. The man continued to kick fruitlessly, gurgling and gnashing his teeth in rage. Without thinking, Sebastian drew him closer and sniffed; the familiar scent washed over him like a blanket, sending a thrill of giddy sensation through his spine.

Something sharp- the small man’s teeth, Sebastian realized belated- struck the bridge of his nose, raking open sharp points of pain. He dropped the strange man in surprise and felt a fist to his sternum, winding him and sending starbursts of painful light behind Sebastian’s eyes.

Sebastian wheeled on him with a roar of instinctual fury, slamming the man down hard enough to hear his skull crack against the concrete. Time seemed to move in blinking scenes to Sebastian, a wild force out of his control. He opened his eyes and saw both paws wrapped around the small man’s neck; Sebastian took in a sharp breath and bared his teeth, anticipating the snap that would bring this whole mess to an end.

 _This has to be the guy_ , Sebastian thought, _this is the monster attacking people. I’ve got to put it down._

Sebastian locked eyes with his enemy, his hands drawing back as if he’d been burned and the haze of violence cleared.

The man’s hands had stopped clawing and were wrapped partway around Sebastian’s wrists, as if he’d just wanted something to hold onto as he died. The thing looked pitiful and small, despite his outsized strength, and looked up at Sebastian in an expression of raw, human terror.

The terror anyone would feel if they were cornered by a monster.

Sebastian tried to take a deep breath to steady himself but the man’s scent wrenched his chest painfully. What am I doing?

For a moment Sebastian reeled back, fragments of memory replaying of the night a terrified young woman had pressed the muzzle of her gun under his own chin, and didn’t fire. He remembered the quiet way she’d explain it later, about how scared he’d looked at her then- human fear glittering in his bestial golden eyes.

Sebastian dropped his hands down to the man’s shoulders, still holding him tight. His eyes flicked nervously over the man’s face, searching for any humanity that would prove he wasn’t just some bloodthirsty animal that had to be put down.

In a near imperceptible twitch, the man bit down into Sebastian’s forearm. Sebastian yelped and slapped him away, sending his body bouncing a few feet away.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Sebastian said, stomping over to him.

The man brushed his tousled hair from his eyes, his face all mortal fear again. His skin was torn in ugly red weals (though they barely bled) and purpling bruises bloomed in an ugly, painful ring around his slender, white neck. He wiped a trickle of blood ruefully from his mouth and cradled his head in his hands.

Sebastian felt a pulse of shame.

“Why are you justing standing there?” the man hissed, “just do it!”

Sebastian cocked his head.

“Kill me!” the man snapped, “do what you came here to do and kill me!”

Sebastian crouched down and the man winced his eyes shut, hands shaking against his head. With an absurd delicacy, Sebastian lifted the man’s head and prodded his lewdly pretty lips up to expose the sharp eyeteeth - which promptly sank into the pad of Sebastian’s thumb.

Sebastian drew his hand back with enough force to shove the man away. “Fuck! Why do you keep doing that?”

The man’s face slackened into a mask of defiant misery, as if he dared anyone to try and cheer him up. He looked away and mumbled something around the hand that he held protectively against his mouth.

“What?” Sebastian cocked his head.

“I said I’m- I’m hungry,” the man said.

“Hungry?” Sebastian said, staring absently at the blood oozing from his thumb. He blinked and his head shot up in surprise as he pieced everything together- the pale complexion, the sharp eyeteeth, the compulsion to draw blood-

“You’re a vampire,” Sebastian said, voice hushed.

“What are you waiting for?” the man shouted, and in the time it took Sebastian to focus he had stood and punched Sebastian across the face.

There was a haze of red pulsing behind Sebastian’s vision, and he felt several more strikes and what was quickly becoming a familiar sensation of teeth tearing into him. He grabbed the man’s arm and twisted it cruelly, teeth bared.

The movement stopped and the man breathed out a strangled sound of pain. Sebastian released him; the momentum sent the man sprawling back to the ground where he glared hatefully up at Sebastian.

“You won, you end it now,” the man snarled.

“Stop that!”

“Kill me!”

“Fucking- shut up with that already!” Sebastian said, tugging at his hair.

Sebastian paced in a small circle, shifting his wait with the sound of shuffling claws. The man sat up and watched him, the fury in his face shifting into confusion as Sebastian draw his hands down his face and dropped to sit across from him.

“What’s your name?” Sebastian said.

The man drew his knees up to his chest. “Joseph. Joseph Oda.”

“And you’re a…”

“Yeah, you seem to have figured that out recently. You can say it: Vampire.”

“Feels weird to say,” Sebastian admitted.

Joseph blinked at him incredulously. “Said the wolfman.”

“…Fair enough.”

“So, you uh…” Sebastian’s voice faltered and he gestured vaguely towards his neck, “drink blood? That’s what’s with all the biting?”

“Obviously.”

“And…you’ve been biting people around town. Or…trying to.”

Joseph’s face dropped to stare between his hands. “Trying…trying not to, really.”

Sebastian thought that was a bit hard to believe, but then again…he cycled through the cases that had brought him here, and just how many of them had been grabbed and then let go. He hated to admit it, but the series of events fit.

“That’s why you only really hurt two of them,” Sebastian said, his tail thumping agitatedly. “Are those the only people you hurt?”

Joseph opened his mouth to answer.

“Have you killed anyone?” Sebastian cut him off.

Joseph’s face looked as though it would have blanched considerably, if he were physically capable of getting any more pale.

Sebastian winced. “I mean, uh, recently?”

“No,” Joseph said quickly, holding up his hands as if that could prove it, “I haven’t…not in- not in a long time.”

“Did you intend to kill them?”

“No! I was just-“ Joseph shuddered and raked his hands though his hair.

Sebastian frowned. “You were just hungry.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I just want you to stop terrorizing the people here!”

“Look, I don’t want to be here either! I just-“ Joseph made a strangled, frustrated noise. “I can’t, everything smells like warm bodies and-and blood, and I can’t leave! I can’t make myself leave.”

“You’re starving,” Sebastian said, more to himself than to Joseph.

Joseph stared away guiltily.

“So I really can’t let you go, then,” Sebastian said. Joseph flinched. “If you can’t leave, and you can’t control yourself around people…”

Joseph turned back to him, looking simultaneously grim and too proud to admit it. “I told you to finish the job already.”

Sebastian studied him appraisingly, frowning at Joseph’s insistence. “If you got enough…er, food…could you leave? Get out of town without sinking into the next warm body you see?”

Joseph smiled wryly. “Going to make me someone else’s problem?”

“Shut up. Answer the question.”

“…Probably, yeah?”

“Probably? You mean you really don’t know?”

“I don’t, I don’t know I can’t- I can’t think!” Joseph said.

“Then just try it,” Sebastian huffed, thumping the side of his neck impatiently. “We can figure out the rest when you’re competent.”

Joseph blinked and worked his mouth silently. Sebastian didn’t miss the blank expression of raw, wanton desire reflecting in Joseph’s dark eyes.

“You’re being serious?” Joseph said.

Sebastian sighed and nodded. He was a little incredulous of his own offer; he’d just wanted to find a solution that didn’t end in one of them- or anyone else- dying. Sebastian tried to convince himself of the situation’s desperation as he stared at the way Joseph’s tongue flicked over his full lips.

“You were seconds away from snapping my neck and killing me…now you’re giving me some kind of- of handout?”

“It’s not like that option is off the table if you keep being so fucking difficult,” Sebastian said.

The two of them stood and took a halting step closer to each other, looking anywhere but at the other.

“So, how do we do this?” Sebastian said nervously.

Joseph clenched his teeth. Before Sebastian had time to realize what he was doing, or maybe change his mind, Joseph was on him.


	2. Lupercalia 2: Electric Boogaloo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm adding this smut as an apology.

Sebastian gripped Joseph’s arms hard as the teeth sliced into his neck, letting the air rush out of him in a doglike whine. Joseph’s lips were warm against the tensed muscles of his neck, sucking at the rich pulse of blood and sending Sebastian’s heart into a frantic press against his ribcage.

Heat seemed to spread from that painful point of contact, tensing the muscles of Sebastian’s thighs and churning the base of his belly with warm arousal. Blood trickled down through Joseph’s teeth, pooling against Sebastian’s collarbone. There was a bloom of light in Sebastian’s vision and he couldn’t breathe properly, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything except try and crush himself against Joseph’s slender form.

Joseph pulled back from Sebastian’s neck to bite a fresh wound just above the last, a searing spark of pain traveling along Sebastian’s spine and shuddering through his chest. Sebastian slid his hands down and hooked clawed fingers into the waistband of Joseph’s pants, grinding against him when the molten heat of Joseph’s tongue dipped against the ragged wounds.

There was a thrumming growl buzzing in Sebastian’s ears; he was mildly surprised to realize the sound came from him as he buried his face into Joseph’s hair.

Each pass of Joseph’s tongue over his fevered skin drew a new, louder pitch of guttural moan out of Sebastian; he was hard and shamelessly rutting against Joseph. The prickle of blood felt almost cool, pulsing out of him and over Joseph’s greedy mouth with the panicked rate of his Sebastian’s heartbeat.

Joseph’s mouth worked against Sebastian’s thick neck with hungry intensity, his lips kissing along the scattered wounds with a bruising, sucking pressure. His tongue trailed down along the swell of Sebastian’s throat to follow an errant trickle of blood in between his own labored breaths.

When Joseph had finally pulled himself away and wiped his thumb against the thick drool of blood collected on his lower lip, Sebastian was wrapped with one hand around the back of Joseph’s neck and waist. His claws drew lines of small, pink welts as they inched down under his waistband.

Their chests heaved in breathless unison; Sebastian was conspicuously stiff and pressing against the thigh Joseph had pressed between Sebastian’s legs.

Joseph pushed away a little, loosening the desperate grasp Sebastian had on him. They stared at each other, Sebastian’s pupils wide and vacant as he calmly examined Josephs mouth, and the way it was streaked with red, running from the tip of his nose, down his chin, and staining his teeth.

Sebastian felt the itch of embarrassment creep across his skin as slowly, he blinked and regained his mental faculties. For a moment the base reality of where he was- bleeding, erect, pressed against a vampire stained with his own blood.

Joseph stared back with something like barely-concealed amusement.

Sebastian cleared his throat, let his hands fall to his sides, and stumbled back a step. “Okay, so…uh, is this like-like the standard vampire bite experience?”

Joseph crossed his arms and licked at the mess of blood on his full lower lip. His mouth twitched in a suppressed smile as he watched the wide-eyed way Sebastian followed the motion.

“Not really, no.”

“What?”

“It’s really not usually that…eventful. I don’t know where you got that idea.”

There was a beat of silence that Sebastian interrupted but clearing his throat nervously.

“…Oh.”

Joseph burst into laughter, trying to muffle it against his fist. Sebastian turned on his heel with every intention of launching himself off the fire escape and running until he saw the next town, erection and bleeding injuries be damned.

He’d barely turned when he felt Joseph’s hand wrap around his wrist and pull him back with a surprising show of force. His momentum made Sebastian stumble and crash against Joseph heavily.

Joseph took that opportunity to grip Sebastian’s hair and crush their mouths together. Their teeth clicked together, a sharp, copper taste of blood spreading against their interlacing tongues.

Sebastian leaned away, unwilling to disentangle himself but too wary to continue. “What’re you doing?”

Joseph grazed his teeth against Sebastian’s lower lip and bit down, drawing even points of blood that he licked away. “I’m taking advantage of your enthusiasm.”

Joseph twined a handful of Sebastian’s hair in his hand and tugged him close, prising Sebastian’s mouth open with his tongue and sucking on it lasciviously. Sebastian’s claws dragged down Joseph’s hips and across his ass, unconcerned with whether or not he was tearing clothing or skin.

Sebastian growled low into Joseph’s mouth, tasting the thick, bitterness of blood along his tongue, breathing hard and feeling Joseph’s own frenzied breaths where their ribs crushed together. Joseph wrapped his arms around Sebastian’s neck, trying to keep each quiet sound from escaping as the bulk of Sebastian’s cock ground against his own arousal.

Joseph was spinning, shutting his eyes against the warm, wet velvet of Sebastian’s tongue curling around the curve of his ears and down his jaw, interspersed with rough, toothy kisses that made Joseph grind his hips against him and pull at whatever his hands could reach.

Joseph dipped his fingers against the blood that flowed from Sebastian’s neck and sucked the fluid from them as Sebastian’s tongue teased its way down his throat and the jutting contours of his collarbone.

Fresh blood coursed through Joseph, the sensation invigorating and delicious. It made the intensity of Sebastian’s mouth, hands, hips, the animalistic way he thrust against him- it was almost too much, searing underneath Joseph’s skin and making each lungful of air ache dully.

He shed his jacket as Sebastian lifted him suddenly, wrapping his legs around Sebastian’s waist to allay the falling sensation. 

He was dizzy, barely aware that Sebastian had sat him on the building’s raised ledge; he thought dimly that it must be a sight for anyone below them.

Sebastian’s claws tearing at the buttons of Joseph’s shirt snapped him back to attention, leaving angry red weals down Joseph’s chest. Sebastian ran his tongue over the markings he’d left, flicking against his nipples in a taunting way that made Joseph’s breath hitch.

Sebastian clamped his teeth gingerly around one of Joseph’s nipples and tugged. Joseph tried to ground himself in a fistful of Sebastian’s hair, squirming at the way that twinge of pain traveled straight to his cock.

The broad, flat expanse of Sebastian’s tongue continued downward, along Joseph’s navel and lapping roughly at his hips while Sebastian’s clumsy paws tugged and tore at the fly of Joseph’s pants.

Joseph’s cock had barely sprung free when Sebastian’s tongue wrapped around it, cupping his cockhead and following the contour of the shaft downward. Joseph covered his mouth with a shaking hand, trying to bite down on the shameful sounds that built in his throat.

Sebastian growled as he laved across the base of Joseph’s length, licking upward and sucking softly around the head. The rumbling sensation tore a series of breathless whines from Joseph, who bucked into Sebastian’s mouth and jerked him downward by the hair, heedless of the teeth or the way the rumbling had turned into a throaty, muffled snarl.

He could barely register it. Joseph’s world had narrowed to the wet heat that engulfed his cock and the soft tangle of Sebastian’s hair in his fingers like a leash. Reality rippled away from him in waves of dizziness; his limbs were heavy as the tension of pleasure swirled in the pit of his stomach. 

The tension mounted into a breathless consuming force that tore through him, arching his back as he came with a sharp cry and spilled against the back of Sebastian’s tongue.

Joseph’s vision blurred, splitting and reforming on the spinning backdrop of the sky as he labored for breath against the rooftop ledge. He felt more than he saw Sebastian stand and pull him upwards, turning him with a drunken pitch of his senses until Joseph was bent at the waist. Joseph braced his palms flat against the ledge, his ass pressed against Sebastian’s cock.

He reached back blindly and grasped onto Sebastian’s hips, rocking against him in desperation for more content. Claws pricked and scraped down his back, dragging the waistband of his pants down to his thighs.

The thick, hot weight of Sebastian’s cock slid against the furrow of his ass insistently, muscular arms wrapping around Joseph’s waist.

“Wow, doesn’t take much to get you going completely feral, huh?” Joseph gasped.

Bestial teeth clamped onto Joseph’s bare shoulder, almost carefully, and saliva branded his skin. A thrill of fear danced along the nape of Joseph’s neck as he felt the tapered cockhead prod at his ass.

It would have been easy for Joseph to throw this creature off of him, maybe even snap his neck, or just run. 

The raw strength against his back and the carefully contained ferocity behind the jaws that had locked into him- Joseph couldn’t remember a time he’d experienced anything quite that erotic.

Joseph rocked backward, pulling Sebastian’s hips flush to the back of his thighs and driving his cock in deep.

The sear of pain signaled to the vestiges of Joseph’s sensibility that this hadn’t been his most well-thought out plan, but frustrated lust and the scalding pant of Sebastian’s breath as he nipped at Joseph’s ear overrode any sensibility he could have acted on.

Sebastian thrust into him automatically, fast and vicious. Pain and pleasure became inextricable from each other; Joseph groaned and arched helplessly against Sebastian’s chest, clawing frantically at his thighs.

Sebastian’s claws scraped ragged lines along Joseph’s stomach, his other hand palming absently at Joseph’s cock. Joseph’s knees shook perilously beneath him, shivering and weak from the dominating cocktail of pain, pleasure, and long-term starvation.

Joseph grabbed Sebastian’s arm, pulling it from where it stroked aimlessly against his sides, and licked hungrily at Sebastian’s clawed fingers, sucking the tips and pressing his tongue to the wildly thudding wrist. He could practically hear the blood hammering against the arteries, matched by the lewd pulse of Sebastian’s cock as it drove into him.

A sharp twist of hunger, matched by the way lust and excruciating pleasure racked his muscles with the way Sebastian’s girth drove into him, momentarily overrode his final shred of better judgment.

The feeling of Joseph’s teeth biting into the flesh of Sebastian’s wrist didn’t slow the relentless way he thrust into Joseph; there was a growl that tapered into a whine and teeth clamped against the back of Joseph’s neck. He kept fucking into Joseph’s tight body with brutal movements, sounding loud slaps down the building’s alleyway.

Joseph held onto Sebastian’s arm as if it could keep him rooted to the earth, drinking the sweet flow of blood greedily. The wound bled faster than Joseph could drink, splashing to ground in heavy droplets. He wasn’t aware of anything beyond the aching waves of pleasure and the monstrous teeth pinching at his neck, while the monster they belonged to buried his cock inside of Joseph.

Joseph lost himself in the lifeblood flooding his mouth and the steady pounding that sent shocks and pulses of agonizing rapture through his whole body. Sebastian’s fist tugged and stroked Joseph’s cock mercilessly, making him writhe and whimper against Sebastian’s chest.

Blood drooled from Joseph’s mouth as the onslaught of sensation crescendoed through his spent body; his vision tinted white and he came a second time with a shuddering, hoarse cry.

Sebastian hilted in him several times with erratic, jerking thrusts, filling Joseph past anything he’d experienced with the bulbous base of his cock. Sebastian came inside him, all heat and pulsing as cum trickled down Joseph’s thighs.

It was the last thing Joseph registered before his vision blurred like a static TV channel and he was falling, slipping into the cool blackness of exhaustion; gripped tight against the sweat and warmth of Sebastian’s body.

—


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing that Joseph registered from behind his tightly shut eyes was the overwhelming, whole-body soreness.

It had been a long time, decades maybe, since he’d experience anything he’d have called dangerous or challenging. Physical discomfort besides cold and hunger had become a little remote to him. Now his body sang with pain, from a dull throb at his backside to the stinging weals that circled him like he’d been caught in a spirograph.

Joseph wanted to make sense of where he was, but he was also loathe to open his eyes. Opening them didn’t tell him anything he couldn’t have assumed- it was a bare white room with a single window, and a bureau, aside from the bed bordered by wall on two sides. A faint glow came from the mercifully drawn blinds and curtains, so it was either morning, or afternoon. It was warm and comfortable, and he was cocooned in blankets- all of which struck Joseph as vaguely ominous.

He tended to spend the daytime in underground shantytowns, abandoned buildings, caves or tucked away in the off-trail woods- anywhere he could hang around without really being noticed. Joseph would have thought he’d remember if he’d managed to bunk down in a real house for once.

He closed his eyes again and strained to pick up any sounds, any movement, but there was nothing aside from the creak and groan of settling pipes. Exhaustion was quickly winning over fear or self-preservation, and it sure seemed like he was alone, at least for now.

 _Besides_ , Joseph thought, _if I died here and now, it wouldn’t be a half-bad way to go_. He pulled the blankets up over his head and let himself sink back into sleep.

-

The bed creaked and dipped with some added weight, and Joseph snapped to alertness and scrambled against the wall in alarm.

Golden-yellow eyes blinked back at him curiously and he dimly recognized him as the man from the night before. Sebastian lifted his hands up slowly in surrender.

Sebastian was more obviously a man now- his teeth fit neatly into his mouth, his fingers ended in blunt nails, and there were no unruly tufts of fur anywhere, save the scratchy beginnings a beard. He was still shirtless though, and shifting from monster to man had done very little to diminish the taut definition of his muscular arms and torso.

He held a pair of glasses out to Joseph with a sheepish half-smile. Joseph took them hesitantly, as though touching them would burn him. The heat of the other man’s skin against his was like an instant spark of memory, a flood of images from their meeting the night before. If he’d had enough blood in him, Joseph was certain his face would’ve been flushed.

Sebastian must have read the embarrassment in his expression though, because he _did_ flush, cheeks and tips of his ears burning pink as he turned to stare at the far wall. “So, uh. Good to see you again?”

“This is your house?” Joseph said.

“Yeah.”

“Why am I in it?” Joseph clenched his teeth and curled his fingers against the mattress, tension radiating from his rigid shoulders.

“You don’t remember?”

Joseph glanced down at himself, where his shirt and jeans were shredded, almost too much to protect his modesty. “Well, I mean…most of it.”

“But not the part where you literally swooned and collapsed?”

Joseph’s breath hitched as he remembered teeth against his skin, warmth flooding his spine as Sebastian came inside him, the ragged growl, the panting, and then-

“Oh. So that’s what happened.”

Sebastian nodded, opened his mouth to speak.

“That doesn’t explain why I’m here,” Joseph interrupted. His eyes were narrowed dangerously, as though he were daring Sebastian to tell the truth.

Sebastian’s brow furrowed. “Did you think I was going to dump you on that roof and run off?”

“I think you were pretty close to snapping my neck for a minute there. Letting someone unconscious burn quietly on a roof is a pretty efficient way of getting rid of them.”

“Jesus,” Sebastian choked, “you’ve got some depressingly low expectations there, buddy.”

“What, you mean the beating beforehand was just foreplay? ‘Cause I was under the impression you’d found me to _kill_ me.”

Sebastian looked sick. “Fuck, that’s not why you- you didn’t go along with it because you thought I was going to-?”

It took Joseph a moment to catch up to what Sebastian’s stuttering implied. He barked out a single, harsh laugh. “No! God, no.”

The implications brought the heat right back to Sebastian’s cheeks. “Oh. Well then, that’s…good.”

A squirming silence stretched between them.

Joseph cleared his throat and gestured to himself. “At the risk of imposing, is there any way you have clothes I could borrow? It’s a little cold.”

Sebastian jumped off the bed like he’d been electrocuted and faced the dresser. “Oh, fuck- sure, let me grab something for you.”

“Thanks.”

Sebastian rooted around the dresser drawers, glancing over his shoulder at Joseph as though he wanted to say something, but thought better of it.

Joseph leaned an elbow against his knee and cupped his chin. “What?”

Sebastian focused on the piles of clothing in his fists and picked through them listlessly. “So…you sick or something?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Believe it or not, I’m not used to dudes passing out on me after hooking up. Thought there might be something wrong with you.”

He could hear the tightness in Joseph’s voice. “You don’t need to go and get tested, if that’s what you’re after. Dead people don’t pick up much in the way of communicable disease.”

Sebastian frowned. “Not what I was asking, but good to know, I guess.”

“So what, you’re just worried about me?” Joseph’s voice dripped sarcasm.

“Is that so hard to believe?”

“The first thing you did when you met me was try to break my neck while calling me a monster; yes. It verges on the hard to believe.”

Sebastian whirled around, clothes in either fist and looking as if he were in pain.“Listen, I’m really sorry about that, okay? You were hurting someone, and it’s- I can’t think clearly when I’ve got dog-brain. Things got out of hand.”

“Dog-brain?” Joseph snorted with amusement.

Sebastian tossed a pile of folded clothes to Joseph and turned to stare at the wall, arms crossed. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“No, I’m not sick.”

“So what happened?”

Joseph changed into Sebastian’s clothes, holding the t-shirt out to read it. “The same thing that happens to anyone who doesn’t eat for too long. Does this shirt say ‘Bad Dog’?”

“My coworker isn’t very funny. So, what, you have like…vampire anorexia?”

“I’m not entirely sure what that would be, if it were a real thing,” Joseph said, pushing his glasses up.

“I just…don’t like doing it. Feeding, I mean. I avoid it if and when I can. Sometimes, I’m not always as prudent as I should be about the spacing between meals and being around…food.”

Sebastian looked Joseph over, trying to keep the concern from etching into his face. Joseph was small; short, slender, angular. With the fading sunlight slanting through the window blinds, he could see the hollows of his eyes and the sharp slant of his cheekbones.

The borrowed clothing hung off Joseph, showing the shadows gathered in the empty space of his bruised throat and jutting collarbones. Something pinched in Sebastian’s chest as he thought about how if he reached under that shirt, he’d be able to walk his fingers over each of Joseph’s rib bones, down the sharp curve of his hips.

The effect was as tragic as it was attractive.

The air caught in Sebastian’s throat while he tried to think of something to say. “I mean…that sounds a little bit like vampire anorexia. If I had to assign a definition to it.”

Laughter bubbled out of Joseph, no matter how hard he tried to remain stoic. “I think of it more as ‘trying not to put myself in a situation where I might slaughter someone’.”

“So it’s unusual for you to hurt people when you, eh, feed?”

Joseph looked away and shrugged. “You were expecting me to be some kind of amoral monster?”

“I guess that does seem hypocritical.”

The smile on Joseph’s face turned tight and cold. “And now you think I’m not a monster, just because I’m scared, and weak.”

“I think you don’t like hurting people.”

“Whether or not I _like_ to makes no difference to the fact that I _do_.”

Sebastian froze like someone had thrown cold water on his insides. A hundred feelings boiled in his chest, all the ways he’d told himself that his existence wasn’t monstrous, that surviving wasn’t wrong. That what he wanted and what he believed was what made him different from animals, murderers, monsters.

He didn’t think saying any of that would be any comfort to the flinty-eyed young man staring him down over his glasses; things Sebastian barely believed himself on a good day.

Sebastian breathed in sharply. “You’re going to have to do better than that to convince me you’re some kind of predatory, uncontrollable animal. You’d be better fed, for one thing.”

Joseph flinched and stared grimly when Sebastian dropped onto the bed beside him, as if he were daring Sebastian to go ahead and finish him off this time. There was an almost imperceptible change in the way he breathed and the way his fingers clenched when Sebastian carefully peeled a square bandage from his neck.

“What are you doing?” Joseph hissed irritatedly, as if the sight of fresh blood would be too much for him.

“You’ve got to eat,” Sebastian said matter-of-factly, “and I happen to be an excellent candidate.”

Joseph glanced suspiciously between Sebastian’s healed neck-wounds and his face, as though the offer were too good to be true.

“But…I bit you already. How’d you-“

Sebastian shrugged. “Werewolf thing; I’ve tested the whole healing thing enough times to be confident you couldn’t do any real damage to me.”

Joseph shook his head, sidling closer to Sebastian despite the hesitance written in his features. “Are you sure you want to be doing this?”

“‘Course. You won’t hurt me.”

 _Won’t. Not can’t_ , Joseph thought. The distinction squirmed like a living thing in Joseph’s stomach.

Then Sebastian scooted back to lean against the wall, splaying his bent knees so Joseph could kneel between them. Joseph’s hesitation washed away with each puff of Sebastian’s cool breath against his skin, chests pressed together.

Joseph stroked along Sebastian’s jaw and tilted his head to expose the full expanse of his neck. He looked to Sebastian again, an almost child-like conflict of want and responsibility obvious in his eyes. Sebastian nodded, mouth quirked into a smile, and Joseph’s misgivings drowned underneath a flood of pure hunger.

Sebastian gripped the sheets when he felt Joseph’s teeth sink into him again, gasping in the breath he’d missed between heartbeats. Joseph was less frantic this time, he’d dropped his hand from Sebastian’s jaw to fall against his thigh, the other fisted around the sleeve of Sebastian’s shirt while he drew slow mouthfuls of blood.

Hot trickles of blood fell slowly down Sebastian’s collar, tracing the branching paths of electric pain that radiated from Joseph’s mouth. Sebastian wrapped an arm around Joseph’s shoulders, pressing him closer so Joseph could feel the unsteady tattoo of Sebastian’s heart with each pull he took from Sebastian’s veins.

Joseph felt heady and high, limbs creeping with fuzzy, indistinct warmth. If he opened his eyes he knew everything would be spinning, so he kept them closed when he pulled away from Sebastian’s neck and tore open a fresh wound higher up, closer to the man’s jaw.

He let himself be pulled down, pulled close by Sebastian so that he was sitting in his lap, leaning against his chest and drinking lazily. Joseph reached down and fumbled at Sebastian’s pants, unzipping them and pulling the thick erection free.

“What’re you doing?” Sebastian mumbled into Joseph’s hair.

Joseph bit down, eyeteeth arcing deep into the flesh, and stroked along Sebastian’s cock in a tantalizingly slow motion. Sebastian groaned and grabbed Joseph’s waist, bucking up into the touch while Joseph’s lips worked against his skin, painting him with bloody kisses.

Sebastian could feel the slow, aching pulse as the blood rushed into Joseph’s warm, wet mouth. He could hardly think, that mouth and the languid way Joseph squeezed along his length, could only let his fingers twitch as he pet Joseph’s back and focus on keeping his hips from jerking.

Sebastian moaned in soft whimpers as Joseph stroked him, the muscles of his stomach tightening with each pump of his fist. The pleasure built in waves along the delicious twinges of pain every time Joseph took another draught, bit down into the torn flesh.

He came with a strangled noise, petting the nape of Joseph’s neck and spilling ropes of cum against his hand. Joseph pulled away from Sebastian’s neck with a slow, circling lick, smeared from nose to chin in blood.

Joseph ran his thumb against Sebastian’s lower lip, letting Sebastian snake his tongue out to lick the mess of cum from his fingers. He watched with heavily lidded eyes as Sebastian sucked gingerly at each digit, lapping up his own sticky mess.

“That’s a good dog,” Joseph murmured.

He felt light, airy, unreal as though he’d sink into the ground and break into a million pieces. Sebastian turned him in his lap, leaning Joseph’s back against his chest as Sebastian unbuttoned his jeans and gripped Joseph’s cock, pulling slowly and running a thumb along his cockhead.

Any other time, Joseph would have had the presence of mind to be embarrassed at the whining sound that came out of him, or the way he writhed against Sebastian, hips working against Sebastian’s fist in silent urging to continue.

Another hand crept up under Joseph’s shirt, playing along his exposed ribs and dipping along the line of his navel while Sebastian stroked him, moving faster in slow, steady increments.

It didn’t take long before Joseph came with a cry, painting Sebastian’s hand and clawing aimlessly at his thighs. His vision was interrupted by swimming pulses of color, and his extremities tingled with hot sparks. He curled up against the rhythm of Sebastian’s chest, calm with the steady in-and-out of his breathing.

Joseph looked up and watched Sebastian’s tongue licking the semen from his own fingers, smiling in a smug, lopsided way back at him. Joseph moved and pressed his lips to Sebastian’s softly, letting the kiss linger before the pleasant buzzing in the back of his head demanded that he let himself fall, slumping into the crook of Sebastian’s shoulder.

He could feel Sebastian’s warmth radiate through him, strong arms around his torso and pulling him in so that they were both lying against the bed, Joseph still tucked against Sebastian’s chest. Joseph wrapped an arm around Sebastian’s waist, holding tight, reluctant to let go of the sublime sense of warmth, the euphoria of so much fresh blood, and the fragile sense of security that felt alien to him.

Joseph’s hold slackened as he drifted into sleep, quietly this time, lulled by the sensuous repetition of Sebastian’s fingers carding through his hair.


	4. Chapter 4

 Sebastian was loathe to admit that he was dizzier than he expected to be when he finally lurched out of bed, careful to tuck Joseph back under the covers. He had no idea how much blood he’d donated to Joseph, but if he was swaying on his feet several hours later, it had to have been a hell of a lot.

 He became dimly aware of his cellphone rattling against the kitchen table.

 “Aw fuck,” he hissed, “Kidman!”

 

A series of messages glowed on the screen. _You didn’t check in. How’d it go?_

  _Assuming you’re dead now. Guess I’ll tell the Chief._

  _Seriously, where are you?_

 Sebastian mashed in a hurried reply. _I’m okay. Things went weird. Tell you about it later._

  _You find the thing?_

  _Yeah…I found it._

  _You killed it?_

  _No…_

 

 Almost as soon as the message sent, Sebastian’s phone began buzzing angrily, Kidman’s name on the screen.

 Sebastian shut his eyes and slumped into one of the kitchen chairs. “Hey, Jules.”

 “Don’t you ‘Hey Jules’ me. We’ve got both our jobs riding on this fucking thing, and if you tell me you let it go, or-“

 “I didn’t let it go- look, I’ve got him here and I don’t think-“

 Juli’s voice turned dark, and dangerous. “ _He_? Who is _he_? Why is he with you?”

 “Yeah, but listen, I don’t think he’s going to be a problem-“

 “What the fuck is this _he_? And since when did you go from ‘hunt and eliminate the threat’ to ‘invite the monster over for fucking tea’?”

 Sebastian cleared his throat. “He’s…a vampire.”

 “A vamp- fuck off! That’s not fucking real.”

 “Juli, you spend one night out of every month locking me in a basement. You can’t possibly be surprised that having a monster out hunting other monsters occasionally means finding those monsters!”

 Juli’s sigh came through thin and stressed. “You know, for a while there? I may have convinced myself that you being a werewolf was like, an anomaly. Now there’s a vampire, and it’s real, and for some reason it’s hanging out with you in your house, and all my delusions of normalcy are gone.”

 “Well, if it helps, he’s a terrible vampire. He passed out on me last night.”

 “So you decided to cart him home like a lost puppy?”

 Sebastian bristled. “What the fuck did you expect me to do?”

 “Kill it! Solve the problem before he gets out and sends the entire city into a fucking panic, and gets as shitcanned as the only detectives on the force who somehow couldn’t solve a series of daytime, sloppy public assaults and murders!”

 Sebastian held the phone away from his ear. When he finally spoke, his voice came soft and flinty. “Was that your plan when you found me?”

 “Sebastian-“

 “Or is that just what you _wished_ you’d done back then?”

 “Don’t start. That was different. I don’t have any fucking zoo animals I can blame foe vampire attacks and- _oh my god_ it feels so stupid saything that.”

 “More stupid than saying ‘werewolf attack’?”

 “There’s at least one real word in ‘werewolf’.”

 “Look, why don’t you take a deep breath, drink some fucking tea, and come over tonight. You can talk to him, and maybe we can all figure out what to do. Sound good?”

 “He’s not feral is he? Is he going to tear into my arteries as soon as I step in?”

 Sebastian touched the pink remnants of bite marks on his neck. “I uh…wouldn’t worry about it. You’ll be fine.”

 “Eight o’ clock then.”

 “See you then.”

—

 Sebastian shook Joseph’s shoulder gently, watching him stir in the faint red glow of the late sunset. Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought Joseph might have looked a little less wasted than before.

 “Hey,” Sebastian said, “hate you wak you, but it’s getting dark and-“

 Joseph yawned and propped himself up, scrubbing at his eyes and blinking in the fading light. He jerked violently, casting about the room in a panic.

 “Whoa, hey, you’re still here,” Sebastian said, holding his hands out and keeping his voice low.

 Joseph met his gaze and stiffened, searching Sebastian’s face before his shoulders relaxed and he smiled sheepishly. “Oh, it’s you. Hello.”

 “You _do_ remember me. I’m flattered.”

 Joseph tried to finger-comb his hair back from where it hung in a swooping arc over one eye. “It’d be kind of hard to forget you at this point.”

 Sebastian looked pointedly away, smiling. “Heh, well…yeah. So, how you feeling?”

 “Halfway decent? Nearly alive.”

 “Is that…good?”

 “The best I’ve felt in a while, honestly.”

 Sebastian sat down next to him. “That’s good, ‘cause I need to ask you a favor.”

 Joseph regarded him suspiciously. “I suppose I owe you one. Or, several, by now.”

 “My friend- my partner- is coming by in a bit. She wants to…talk to you. I can pretty much guarantee it won’t be pleasant.”

 “Partner?”

 Sebastian felt a strange electric sensation in his chest when he saw that Joseph looked disappointed. It was an embarrassingly gratifying feeling. “Detective partner. We’re detectives. Police. That kind of partner.”

 “Oh.” Joseph bit his lip and stared down at his hands. “Does that make you the K9 unit then?”

 Sebastian rolled his eyes. “Good one.”

 “So is that how you found me? You were looking for me the whole time?”

 “Probably since you showed up in town, yeah. You were one of our cases- strange figure lurking outside public places, accosting people, biting them- are you really surprised the police got involved?”

 “Oh. Sorry.”

 They sat together in silence, listening to the last few straggling bird calls as the sky dyed to starry purple.

 Sebastian gestured to the hallway. “You’re welcome to use the shower, you know. You could use it.”

 Joseph raised an eyebrow.

 “No offense,” Sebastian added.

 Joseph touched his mouth, dried blood crumbling off on his fingers. He had always been adamant about staying clean, washing up in rivers and ponds and such, but it had been a damned long time since he’d had the simple luxury of hot water.

 He found his desire to maintain an aloof sense of dignity in this mess was easily crushed beneath the allure of a proper shower.

 “Okay, yeah,” Joseph said. “Thank you.”

 Sebastian left the room and returned with an armful of clean white towels that he tossed onto Joseph. Joseph watched him turn to leave the room, saying something about the shower dial. He watched the muscles that flexed underneath Sebastian’s tight, bloodstained white shirt, and the nervous smile he flashed Joseph when he caught him looking.

 Joseph’s mouth felt dry, in contrast to the sensation of cold rain splashing into the pit of his stomach.

 “You should join me,” Joseph blurted out before he could stop himself.

 He clutched the bundle of towels against him like they could somehow prevent him from burning to ash and blowing away under the sheer heat of his embarrassment.

 Sebastian’s back straightened and he paused, not turning around. Joseph swallowed and took a step towards the bathroom.

“You’re kind of a mess too,” Joseph added weakly.

 Joseph made up his mind to escape into the bathroom and lock the door behind him when Sebastian didn’t respond. Shame churned in his guts; it had been a stupid move, a stupid assumption to make. He had to face it, all that addled, awkward pawing at each other was probably just Sebastian humoring him, or making a mistake, some kind of regret-

 Sebastian’s arm was around his waist suddenly, pulling him into the bathroom. Effortlessly, he locked the door with his free hand, steered both of them into the shower stall and started a hot spray, soaking through their clothes. Joseph felt Sebastian’s rough hands tug Joseph’s shirt over his head, pulling the wet denim from Joseph’s legs before stripping himself.

 The water ran pink as it rinsed through layers of clotted blood that clung to their clothes, their skin, even crusted in Joseph’s hair.

 Joseph may have already been acquainted with Sebastian’s body, but with a clear head and the bright incandescent lights, he found a whole new appreciation for it; it glistened with the sheen of water running down his muscles, gathering at his navel and cascading down his thighs.

 He kissed Sebastian’s throat ardently, skimming his palms down Sebastian’s shoulders to splay against his chest. It took effort for Joseph to ignore how much he wanted to bite into Sebastian’s throat and bathe his tongue in more of his sweet, copper-and-cinnamon blood. He contented himself to taste Sebastian’s skin with exploring flicks of his tongue.

Joseph’s mouth traveled down along the smooth valleys of muscle along Sebastian’s torso, stroking his thumbs along the ridge of muscle cutting under Sebastian’s hips as his tongue swept in loose arcs down the meridian of the man’s body. Sebastian barely moved, just breathed heavily against the tiled wall. When Joseph glanced up he could see Sebastian covering his mouth and staring at Joseph intently.

Joseph was determined to draw some sound out of him. He tolled his tongue along the base of Sebastian’s cock, already twitching and heavy against Sebastian’s stomach, slipping downward to trace the crease of his groin. He felt the way Sebastian’s back flexed and his muscles tightened in response and moved up to lick in kittenish swipes at the swollen heat of Sebastian’s cockhead, letting his lips tease against it with theatrically shy, suckling kisses.

Sebastian twitched into his mouth and Joseph heard the breathless, soft sound of whimpering above him. Joseph swallowed Sebastian’s cock down in one smooth motion, caressing the shaft with his tongue until his nose pressed against the skin of Sebastian’s stomach.

Joseph pulled back slowly, working his lips and tongue languidly while Sebastian’s hips jerked helplessly, trying to recapture the warmth of Joseph’s mouth. Joseph felt Sebastian’s fingers trail twitchingly across his cheek, and lifted Joseph’s face up.

“ _Please_ \- please, bite me,” Sebastian managed to gasp out, even as Joseph’s tongue darted out to lick the beads of pre-cum that had gathered.

Joseph stared up, trying to process just what it was that Sebastian had asked of him in the haze of his enthusiasm. All that blood coursed there, underneath the tanned gold of Sebastian’s skin, and the wavering sound of desire in Sebastian’s voice was all the convincing Joseph needed.

“Where?”

Sebastian pulled Joseph up and pressed tight to him, rutting against him and pressing his left hand against Joseph’s mouth. Joseph couldn’t find the self-control to refuse, much less hesitate, and he bit down savagely into the flesh below Sebastian’s thumb.

 He wrapped his free arm around Joseph’s back and pressed against him, their cocks sliding together with a guttural groan from Sebastian. Joseph gripped Sebastian’s hips as he arched into the contact desperately, heat flooding the pit of his stomach as the euphoria of blood trickled into his mouth.

 Joseph’s skin felt like it was burning with sensation, seizing up his lungs and making his legs tremble with the effort of holding in how excruciating the pleasure felt. 

Sebastian gripped at Joseph’s ass as he rutted against him, his muscular arms enveloping the slight paleness of Joseph’s body. He could feel the way Joseph moaned againsthis hand, working his teeth in deep. Joseph pulled away, bathing his tongue in the free flow of blood and sucking it lewdly from Sebastian’s fingers.

Joseph came at almost the same time as Sebastian, their bodies shuddering against each other in their tense paroxysms of orgasm. The hot spray of the showerhead rinsed the cum that shot against their stomachs, and left watery rivulets of blood dribbling from Joseph’s mouth.

Sebastian pet along the smooth expanse of Joseph’s warmed skin as they sagged, heaving breaths through the drowsy pleasure of being both spent and clean. He watched with rapt attention as curls of red washed from Joseph’s stained lips.

Slowly and almost shyly, Sebastian reached over to grab a bottle, lathering its contents in his hands and working his callused fingers into Joseph’s streaming hair.

Joseph stiffened, grasping at Sebastian’s hips as though they could root him to reality. With the drunken euphoria of the blood fading from his head, he could only silently panic through this gesture.

For a while, Joseph’s life had boiled down to running, feeding, and the rare, frenzied coupling in dark clubs, or even alleyways. He’d seen it as the natural consequence of living like a feral animal- of being a feral animal. The feeling of Sebastian’s fingers carding through his wet hair, massaging his scalp in rhythmic circles- beyond the obvious peaceful comfort of it, Joseph felt strange. Wrong 

_It was like offering a snapping dog food_ , he thought. Even if Sebastian’s intentions were pure, unadulterated fondness, there was still the reality of Joseph’s murderous teeth on the other end. Even now, in the hazy afterglow, Joseph could taste the sweet and bitter blood congealing in the back of his teeth. He didn’t know if he was capable of being anything else- of being domestic.

_When was the last time someone had touched him like this?_ Maybe before he’d died, before the hunger had stripped him of everything.

_What would a real person do here?_ Joseph asked himself. Joseph slipped his arms around Sebastian’s neck, leaning against him as though they’d done this a hundred times together- as if his arms weren’t shaking.

He felt Sebastian stiffen in response, and he was certain that in that moment Sebastian had realized what he was doing- holding onto a bloody and violent animal he’d found in the streets. Joseph squeezed his eyes shut, determined to remember that moment before Sebastian shoved him off.

Sebastian’s hands just resumed their earlier work, trailing soap lather in soothing motions along Joseph’s shoulder blades. Joseph’s breath hitched in his throat, and he let his shaking fingers trail through Sebastian’s hair in kind, rubbing his thumbs against the other man’s temples.

Joseph remembered the way Sebastian’s canine teeth had threatened to tear through his neck and open his jugular while they’d fucked like animals on the rooftop, the memory curling hot and anxious in his stomach, and thought of the ridiculous way it contrasted with the almost reverent gentleness Sebastian used now, fingers curled against Joseph’s back and stubbled chin tucked against Joseph’s smooth shoulder.

It was just as bewildering when Joseph found himself timidly kissing Sebastian’s jaw, his body starting up in a tremble as though he himself weren’t capable of breaking Sebastian’s neck with one hand- and as though he hadn’t spent the last day bleeding the man dry. 

“Let’s get you out before it gets any colder,” Sebastian mumbled against Joseph’s arm.

 Joseph nodded, disentangling himself and stepping back while the cooling water rinsed him. Sebastian watched with an awkward smile and leaned in to kiss Joseph’s lip in a chaste way that felt a little absurd. Joseph smiled despite himself.

Sebastian turned off the tap and Joseph wrapped himself in a towel, more for the luxury of it than any pressing need for modesty. He tried not to let his eyes linger too long as he watched Sebastian wrap his towel loosely around his waist.

Given that the need for social propriety had disappeared at least one hand job ago, Joseph set straight to rummaging under Sebastian’s sink, and pulled out a dusty old first-aid kit.

“What’re you doing?” Sebastian said.

Joseph nodded at the multiple, raw looking wounds that spread from Sebastian’s neck to his left hand. “You should cover those up.”

Sebastian snorted. “Whatever. They’ll be gone in an hour or two.”

“Will they be gone by the time your partner gets here?”

Sebastian shrugged, but sat down on the rim of the bathtub and reached for the first-aid kit. Joseph nudged his hand away.

“C’mon,” Sebastian said, “I think I can-“

Joseph knelt beside him, ignoring his protests in favor of winding a bandage from his hand to his wrist. After two more large bandages to cover the lacerations dotting his Sebastian’s neck and shoulder, Joseph worried that he almost looked worse, with blood staining the clean white linen.

Joseph touched one of the bandages gently. “These will actually heal up, right?”

Sebastian seemed to chuckle at the concern on Joseph’s face and clapped him on the back. “‘Course. It hasn’t even been a day yet; it’ll be fine.”

The doorbell rang. Sebastian froze in place, trying to untangle his hair with his fingers.

“Oh, shit. Guess we stayed in too long.”


	5. Chapter 5

Juli was seriously considering picking Sebastian’s lock while staring at the back of his door. She had gone through all the trouble to set up a time to meet him at his own apartment, and he still managed to be late. Late to answer his own goddamn door.

She was fishing through her purse for a bobby pin when she heard the lock slide back and saw Sebastian peeking through the doorway, red-faced and apprehensive.

“Sebastian,” she said curtly, pushing past him and into the apartment.

She halted in the kitchen where a young man was sitting at the table - looking small in oversized jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, his hair damp and dripping sporadically onto the bridge of his black glasses.

“ _This_ is the monster?” Juli said, turning to Sebastian.

Sebastian locked the door and gestured for her to sit across from his new friend. “Don’t be rude. His name is Joseph.”

She fell into the chair with crossed arms, staring at Sebastian as he took a seat. He was damp as well, hair falling in his eyes. Bandages peeked out from the neckband of his t-shirt and wound up his forearm, dotted here and there with blood.

“What the hell happened to you?” Juli said, pointing at Sebastian’s arm.

He shrugged at stared at the table while Joseph fidgeted with his shirtsleeves.

“You know how it is, Jules. Chasing suspects, getting into scraps, shit happens,” Sebastian said.

Juli arched an eyebrow. “They look kind of fresh.”

“Anyway, Juli, this is Joseph, Joseph, this is Juli, my detective partner. Juli, Joseph is,” Sebastian cleared his throat. “A vampire.”

Joseph looked over to her, hesitant. Eventually he offered her his hand with an expression that suggested he was afraid she was about to leap over the table and throttle him.

She considered doing exactly that. Instead, she shook his hand and looked him in the eyes with unmasked annoyance. “So, you’re the pain in our ass that’s been running around assaulting people?”

Joseph dropped her hand and crossed his arms on the table. “Um, I guess.”

“You guess. You’re not sure if you were out there grabbing and biting people?”

“Juli,” Sebastian cut in, “the point is he didn’t end up hurting anyone. He’s here now, and we can figure out how to keep anything like this from happening again.”

“And what if we had been a little too late, Sebastian? Do you think killing is somehow _below_ a creature that drinks blood?” Juli said.

“I’m not saying that,” Sebastian said, “I’m just saying he _didn’t_ kill anybody and we should focus on how to keep _everyone_ alive from here on out.”

Juli turned away from Joseph. “What happened to _hunting_ the monsters, Sebastian? Last time I checked, that was the best way to make sure things like this didn’t happen again. Since when did I sign up to be the KCPD House for Wayward Murderers?”

Sebastian grimaced. “Listen, let’s work with what we’ve got. It’s not even your house, anyway.”

“What we’ve got,” Juli said loudly, “is an unstoppable, furry killing machine, but apparently he’s gone completely soft.”

Sebastian’s face went stormy, and Joseph cleared his throat.

“Maybe I should just go,” Joseph said.

Juli pointed to him menacingly. “Oh, no you don’t, buddy. You want to run off just so you can behave for a week and then start playing ‘eat the human’ in my city?”

“No, I mean- I can leave the city, go somewhere else. Maybe I’ll go back to Canada.” Joseph said, biting down on his lip.

Juli saw the way his exposed tooth was curved and viciously sharp, and felt a needle of fear through her spine. _Unnatural_.

“Then you’d just be out there terrorizing a different city,” Juli said. “That really isn’t going to work. No matter what, I’m looking at potential body counts with you.”

“We can’t just-“ Sebastian started.

Joseph cut him off, his voice sounding choked. “No, not back to a city. I mean I can go into the woods again, where there isn’t anybody to terrorize. I’ve done it before. I can always go back to it.”

“You’d just starve to death,” Sebastian snapped.

“Maybe. Probably,” Joseph said.

Juli narrowed her eyes. “If that’s what you were doing before, how did you end up here?”

Joseph rubbed his cheek and focused on a blank spot on the wall. “It’s like Sebastian said. I got hungry. And…” he trailed off, glancing to Sebastian.

“I thought I could make it this time. You hear stories…get good at finding people who don’t mind a bite here and there, or find a long term donor…you risk getting found out, sure, but at the time it seemed like a better option. A better option than either starving to death or flat-out murder.”

“But you couldn’t hack it,” Juli said flatly.

Joseph scowled and stood up, roughly knocking his chair back. “This is humiliating. Are you going to let me leave, or are you going to put me down? Just pick one!”

Juli stood, drawing a pistol from its’ holster under her jacket. “Or what?”

“He can stay with me,” Sebastian barked, suddenly looming between them. Juli faltered, simultaneous with Joseph, and turned to stare at him. Sebastian kept his eyes trained on Joseph, a detail which only made Juli more irritated. _Why was the vampire the one whose opinion Sebastian was worried about_?

“It’s obvious that he’s…that being a vampire is only a problem if he goes hungry, right? So, as long as he has somewhere to stay and…food, it’ll be okay. It’s just like the basement, Jules, right? We’ve got a control option,” Sebsatian said.

Juli frowned. “And what do you figure he’ll eat?”

“I’ve got blood same as anyone else,” Sebastian said. 

Juli glanced between the two of them. Sebastian had the grim, determined expression she recognized on him any time he had his mind set on doing something stupid and borderline self-destructive; Joseph looked as though Sebastian had just declared himself the new Queen of France.

“Besides, you know I won’t miss my blood half as much as-“

“A human?” Juli interrupted. She stared at the bandages on his neck and felt cold realization slam into her.

“You already fed him,” she said quietly. She placed her gun emphatically on the tabletop, ignoring how Joseph flinched.

Within moments, the righteous fury had returned to her. She rounded on Joseph and pointed at Sebastian accusingly, voice thunderous.

“Is he your-your _blood thrall_ now? Are you controlling him somehow? Can you turn people?”

Joseph looked appropriately fearful. “What-no! I don’t- I really don’t think blood thralls are a thing.”

“I’m not under anyone’s control, Juli,” Sebastian said.

She ignored him.

“What about turning? Is he going to turn? Goddamit, how much of this is like the movies?” Juli said.

“No, I don’t- I think you have to be dead already? I don’t know, I’ve never-“ Joseph stammered.

“How can you not know?” she hissed.

“There isn’t exactly an orientation for vampirism, you know.” Joseph said.

Juli took a deep breath and held her hands out as though she were a judge calling for quiet. She nodded slowly to nothing in particular, watching the way Joseph blinked at her with his big, watery eyes.

She felt like she had lived this exact moment before, absurdity chased on the heels of psychological exhaustion. Humans weren’t meant to reason with this level of unreality all at once, she supposed.

“Okay,” Juli said, “Okay, I’m leaving now. I need to lie down and think this all over. Sebastian: a word with you in private?”

Sebastian flashed Joseph a half-hearted smile and led Juli into the hallway outside the apartment. As soon as the door clicked shut, she whirled to face him.

 

“Sebastian, please tell me you didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?”

“Didn’t fuck your little twink vampire friend in there, and are now fighting hopelessly to turn this fucked up stack of mistakes into a happy ending.”

Sebastian rubbed the bridge of his nose. When he looked back at her, years of exhaustion and despair were etched into his face. Juli felt her heart drop; it was easy to forget that past the veneer of sarcasm, jokes, and animal brutality, Sebastian was just a big furry heap of trauma.

“I didn’t get into this to kill people, Jules,” he sighed. “Not people who never deserved it, and not people who could be helped. You took a chance watching my back all these years, and you know damn well what I would end up doing if I didn’t have you.

Is it so fucked up that I want to give someone else the chance to live…something like a normal life?”

Juli cracked a smile. “And it has nothing at all to do with his tight little ass?”

Sebastian flushed and smiled back. “Well, you know. I try to consider all angles.”

She grabbed Sebastian’s large hand and held it between both of hers. “Sebastian…promise me it will be safe. For you, and for everyone else in the goddamned city.”

“It’ll be safe. I promise.”

“Because if I hear one report that even suggests he’s stepped out of line, I’m putting two between his eyes and one in your ass, just to say ‘told you so’.”

Sebastian hugged her tightly until she thumped on his back to be released with a chuckle. “Duly noted.” 

Juli squeezed his arm and walked off, her heels tapping down the hallway.

 

\--

 

The door clicked behind Sebastian. “Well, that could have gone better.”

Joseph didn’t look up. He just gripped his wrists and fixed his stare at the tabletop.

“Joseph?"

“She’s right, you know.”

“Right about what?”

“I don’t know what it is you think you’re doing. I don’t need you treating me like some kind of savage charity case.”

Sebastian’s brow furrowed.

“I don’t want you keeping me here and acting like you give a shit because you feel guilty, or-“

“It’s not like that-“

“-Or because you need to keep me out of the way. I don’t want to be trapped here on the end of some leash, living at your mercy, just because you’d feel too bad to kill me!”

“Joseph…”

Joseph drew his lips up to display the angry spread of his predatory teeth. “I’d rather you just kill me here and now.”

“Would you stop it!”

Joseph glared up at him defiantly. 

Sebastian’s shoulders fell, and Joseph’s expression softened into passivity.

“You can stay, if you want to. You can leave if you want to. It’s entirely up to you.” Sebastian said.

“What about Juli? And your job?” 

Sebastian shrugged and turned away, lighting a cigarette. “What about them? Who cares. Shit happens, we lose suspects. I tell her you snuck out the window or something.”

“You’re not worried about me getting out there and slaughtering civilians? 

Sebastian’s eyes flicked to him tiredly. “I think you’ve got that angle covered. You don’t seem like the slaughtering type.”

Joseph frowned at the table, drumming his fingers on it. “Why would you bother? Asking me to stay, offering to let me leave…what’s your plan?”

“My plan? Jesus, kid. I’m not doing it because of…because of earlier, or anything like that. I’m not planning shit.” Sebastian took a long drag of his cigarette. “I just wanted to give you a chance at trying to live like a normal person. As normal as it gets for people like you and me.”

Silence filled the room. 

“Is that what Juli did for you?” Joseph said, peering somberly over his glasses.

“Pretty much. She helped me keep my job, started locking me up when I needed locking up, she even filed fake reports so no one could track me, on the off chance someone tried.”

“Does this…does this work for you?”

Sebastian shrugged.“More or less. You get the shit kicked out of you some days, other days…”

He crossed his arms andand scuffed at the floor with his boot. “Well, I got to meet you, right?”

Joseph was losing track of the number of times he’d have blushed if he were still alive. As it was, his skin tingled with the rush of borrowed blood.

Again, the silence settled over them again, interrupted only by the gentle crackle of Sebastian’s cigarette.

“I’ll try.” Joseph’s voice sounded unusually small. “Staying, I mean. If you meant it, about having me as a…roommate, I guess.”

Sebastian smiled. “I offered, didn’t I?”

“That doesn’t mean you’re not going to end up regretting it.”

“I’m willing to take my chances on that.”


	6. Chapter 6

This was possibly the most awkward situation Joseph had ever had to suffer through, either in his life or afterlife. Silence, broken only by the sound of dishes clinking in the kitchen, pressed like a thick, physical force on Joseph’s ears. He perched stiffly at the edge of Sebastian’s overstuffed couch, chewing his lip and contemplating bolting.

Sebastian came into the room and passed Joseph a hot mug of tea, watching him take it with an openly curious expression. Joseph stared back, sipping the tea with as flat a look as he could manage.

“Oh!” Sebastian said, staring down at his own steaming cup. “I was wondering if you could drink that. Or…anything that isn’t blood, I guess.”

“If you didn’t know I could drink this, why’d you give it to me?”

Sebastian grinned nervously. “I’m sorry, I- it didn’t even occur to me until I handed it to you just now. Then I was too anxious to ask and I figured I’d just see how it shook out.”

Joseph took another drink, trying not to smile.

“So you can just like, eat stuff?”

Joseph smiled. “It’s the classic thing to do with food.”

“I thought it might hurt, or burn. Make you sick.”

“It really just doesn’t do much for me.”

“Oh.”

Sebastian flicked the television on, illuminating the dim room with the gentle blue glow of some soothing undersea documentary, complete with a french-accented narrator. It reminded Joseph of Montreal, which wasn’t a comforting thought.

He tried not to think about the sound of screaming and chewed nervously at his thumbnail.

“You okay?” Sebastian said, dropping onto the couch beside Joseph.

Joseph clutched an arm to his side, shoulders painful with how rigidly he held them together in his attempt to take up as little space as possible. He wondered if Sebastian’s canine-sharp hearing could pick up the sound of him swallowing.

“I’m fine.”

“Bullshit.”

“I said, I’m fine,” Joseph growled.

“You look like you’re about to puke.” Sebastian tilted his head. “Can vampires puke?”

“Sometimes, if I- never mind, it’s not important.” Joseph frowned and dug his nails into his arm.

Sebastian propped his chin up on his hand and signed into the documentary’s gentle music.

Joseph scanned the room for some point of interest, anything to focus on other than his current situation. He landed on a console table shoved against a wall near the corner; it was pretty, dark wood with ornate scrollwork that was out of place in the otherwise drab apartment. An unlit candle slumped in a petrified half-melt in front of a bi-fold picture frame.

He obviously didn’t recognize the two people in the pictures, but he understood well enough what the setup meant. Joseph’s stomach sank as he wondered who they were, and who they’d been to Sebastian.

He caught Sebastian cutting his gaze away from where Joseph was staring.

“I don’t think I’ve been in a house with another person for this long in…since…ah, shit. I forget. Feels like a lifetime ago,” Joseph said quietly.

Sebastian nodded. “How old are you, anyhow?”

Joseph winced. “I stopped keeping track at some point. Figure’d it would just get depressing eventually.”

“I hear that.”

Sebastian swept an arm out behind Joseph and looked at him, asking silent permission.

Joseph’s mouth quirked into a pained smile and he nodded curtly, staring at the television while the prickling sensation crept across his cheeks. Sebastian draped an arm around Joseph, pulling him incrementally closer to his side.

“I think I was in my thirties when it happened, though,” Joseph said.

The body heat was welcome at least; Joseph himself edged towards “chill” no matter how much blood he borrowed, and Sebastian’s living form was like a furnace in comparison.

Everything else though- it was all too much. Joseph had forgotten both the finer and not-so-fine points of interpersonal relationships; he’d forgotten more or less anything except wringing mouthfuls of blood out of some hapless one-night stand, blending in for just long enough, and figuring out when to run.

He’d forgotten friendship, companionship, and just what he was supposed to do with his hands when a large, handsome man invited him into his home and offered him tea.

Joseph’s teeth clenched and a tremor started in the tight could of his shoulders down to his hands. Panic was, at least, familiar to him and the way his eyes ached with tears he couldn’t let himself shed was the closest thing to relief he could expect.

Sebastian rubbed his palm between Joseph’s shoulder blades. “Fuck man, you really don’t know how to calm down, do you?”

Joseph rasped out a humorless chuckle. “Haven’t had much practice.”

“You can come off as a little heavy, you know that?”

Joseph squeezed his eyes shut and hesitantly rested his head against Sebastian’s broad shoulder as a gesture of goodwill. Pressed to the warmth of Sebastian’s body, he tried to convince himself of things he didn’t really believe.

_You don’t have to hunt here. There doesn’t have to be any screaming._ Every affirmation eased his breaths out a little more smoothly. _You don’t have to pretend to be normal right now._

Sebastian wrapped both arms around Joseph and pulled him into his lap, as though Joseph’s reluctant contact had triggered some sort of primal response. He felt Sebastian nuzzle against his temple, breath warm against his ear.

Joseph tried to hold in the laughter that was bubbling out of him. _Just an oversized dog._

“What?” Sebastian said, tone guarded.

Joseph shook his head and tried to bite back his grin. There was a tight sensation twisting his stomach, but for once he couldn’t call it unpleasant. It wasn’t unlike the giddy, warm feeling that often followed fresh blood.

Sebastian licked across Joseph’s cheek, tongue leaving a warm, wet trail.

They both froze in place until Joseph broke the silence by doubling over in a paroxysm of laughter, clutching helplessly at Sebastian’s shirt.

“What- what was that?” Joseph wheezed.

Sebastian looked away sheepishly. “I-I’m sorry, look-it- sometimes, you get caught up and you- you forget your human manners-“

Joseph grinned and rested against Sebastian’s chest, head tucked into the crook of his neck. He reached up to run his palm along Sebastian’s stubbled cheek and scratched lightly at the hair behind his ear.

“Dog jokes,” Sebastian huffed, “that’s real cute.”

Nevertheless Sebastian hugged Joseph tight to him, resting his chin against Joseph’s head with a yawn. The television’s french narrator rambled quietly in the background about tentacles and arms, the dappled blue of the ocean lighting both their drowsing features.

Sebastian fell asleep first, arms heavy around Joseph’s waist and drooling peacefully against his shoulder.

Joseph was at a loss for what he was supposed to do. Would it be more appropriate to wake Sebastian, drag him straight to bed, or should he just stay there, let Sebastian sleep that way until he woke on his own.

The thought of wandering Sebastian’s apartment, waking him, upsetting any of his things felt wrong. He was a trespasser here. He didn’t have the right act like he lived there, too.

Numbness tingled up Joseph’s arm and just like that, the discomfort overrode his fear of being unwelcome. The worst that could happen was Sebastian was going to throw him out, and that was bound to happen eventually. Joseph summoned all the supernatural strength his borrowed blood supply provided him and hauled Sebastian up.

His bulk was difficult to contain against Joseph’s smaller frame, and Joseph stumbled through the house in his clumsy attempt to keep Sebastian- still snoring peacefully through the upset- from knocking into walls, or knocking over furniture.

Sebastian grunted when Joseph dropped him into his bed in a tangled nest of blanket. He opened one eye and smiled sleepily, pulling at Joseph’s arm in a silent encouragement to join him.

Joseph stiffened and backed away, swinging to sit on the edge of the bed with his knees drawn up to his chest. His chest felt too tight again.

He felt Sebastian sit up behind him, snorting noisily. “S’wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing, I-“

Sebastian leaned against Joseph’s back in his effortlessly affectionate fashion. “It’s a lot to take in all at once, I guess?”

Joseph ran his hands through his hair and tried to find the resolve he could usually summon to bottle down that cold swell of fear in his throat. He should be dealing with this silently.

“I mean, we just met, what, two days ago?” Joseph said, almost breathless.

“Been that long already?”

“Hah.”

Sebastian cleared his throat. “A little bit of trust goes a long way, I guess.”

Joseph nodded absently, and the smile he turned on Sebastian was reserved. “Is that what we’ve been doing here? A series of mutual trust falls?”

“C’mon,” Sebastian said through a yawn, “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but whatever’s bugging you isn’t going to get worse just ‘cause you got some sleep.”

A leaden lump formed in Joseph’s throat, seizing his chest with feat as he allowed himself to be pulled downward, under the bedcovers and the weight of Sebastian’s arms. He let his fingers trail along Sebastian’s back, sucking in deep breaths.

Survival had meant a lot of different things to Joseph, and each one of those things had been some level of debasing. This? It was a whole new level of shame to experience. He’d been an animal, a freak, a predator- now he’d be a common whore to boot.

Sebastian had been kind to him so far- much kinder than Joseph would have expected from Sebastian’s brutal flavor of monstrousness, or even just from a cop. He was attractive too- Joseph had managed to get himself into this mess with just a few glimpses of his body and the heated memories of their first meeting, after all.

None of that meant Joseph was willing to trade his body for the luxury of staying there.

As the night went on and Sebastian continued with his various affections, he’d become convinced that his body was the only reasonable way he had to pay for all this- safety, warmth, blood. He knew he ought to be grateful; it seemed a small price to pay, and he’d been sharing himself willingly up until now.

Bitter gorge touched the back of Joseph’s tongue. Fair price or no, a shudder traveled down his spine, anticipating with self-disgust the moment that Sebastian’s hands would follow the path of his shivering and demand Joseph’s payment.

_I can do this,_ Joseph told himself, _I’ve just got to stay still, be a warm body. Well…an available body. Isn’t that just how you treat everybody else?_

“Calm down, calm,” Sebastian mumbled against Joseph’s forehead.

Sebastian’s fingers twitched against the back of Joseph’s neck and ruffled haphazardly through his hair. When the steady rumble of Sebastian’s snoring vibrated against him, the wave of relief Joseph felt traveled through his whole body, bringing a wet pricking to his eyes.

Lights flickered through the window alongside the faraway, tinny noises of the city at night. Joseph was alert to all of them out of habit, dizzy and exhausted with trying to analyze every noise and creak through the apartment as the early morning began to stretch on without him.

Eventually he pressed his head to Sebastian’s chest, trying to savor what might be his last chance at uninterrupted, safe sleep. He tried to count Sebastian’s heartbeats, focused on their steady rhythm until it lulled him into a hard-won cal and he could finally lapse into sleep, warmth radiating through the man’s skin.

Somewhere, Joseph imagined that he was already mourning this stolen moment of peace.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Man, this fic got CUDDLY.

Sebastian jolted from sleep, swiping helplessly at half-remembered screams that echoed from his nightmare. It was a ritual for Sebastian, except this time he jostled Joseph who groaned and curled his fingers against Sebastian’s chest in a half-sleep. All that terrible imagery melted from Sebastian as he watched his new bedfellow; Joseph looked younger and less feral in his sleep, lit by the glow from behind the curtains. He wished he could always look that relaxed.

He wanted to stay there, lazy away that morning with his pretty friend snuggled up against him until late afternoon. The phone rumbling in the other room, however, had its own opinions about that plan. Sebastian slid out from under Joseph’s arm as quietly as he could, wrapping him the comforter as a cocoon against any stray shaft of sunlight.

Sebastian stumbled his way through the various morning routines that were non-negotiable: shaving, clothes, food. He squinted at his phone over a cup of coffee, punching it into silence even as it buzzed to life again.

 _Hey Fleabag_ , the text read, _I know this is like, the honeymoon or whatever, but we’ve got work to do._

 _On my way_ , he typed back. He would definitely be late, but he wasn’t concerned. He was always late; no one had taken special notice before, and they wouldn’t care now.

He grabbed his trench coat from the bedroom and shrugged it on, faltering as he stared at the sleeping form of Joseph. Sebastian wasn’t clear on what the correct thing to do in this situation was. Would it be rude to just leave, leave Joseph to his own devices? Should he wake him up?

 _And say what?_ Sebastian thought to himself, _Bye honey, I’ll be home around 6?_

That would be inappropriate, probably. Creepy, probably.

He couldn’t just…say nothing though. Grabbing a notebook he kept on the nightstand, Sebastian scrawled a hurried note and left the book open so Joseph could read it. He couldn’t shake the work that Joseph would wake up and just leave without…

_Without what? Without saying goodbye? You said he could go if he wanted to. What does it matter to you?_

Sebastian dropped the pen, angry at himself suddenly. He hurried out of the apartment, feeling nauseous and hoping he could shake off the strange feeling by focusing on work.

-

A familiar surge of adrenaline burned Joseph into wakefulness. He tumbled out of the bed and scrambled across the carpet like an animal, desperate to know where he was and whether or not the danger he felt was real.

The bedroom came into focus moment by fearful moment, the whole of the apartment, the bright halo of afternoon sunlight from the window. It was enough to remember that he had woken up in Sebastian’s home, where he’d been the night before.

Recognition didn’t do as much as he would have liked to alleviate the panic; it clung to him like a stubborn film. Joseph paced the room madly, circling the kitchen and the living room madly as if he could memorize their angles, their entrances and exits. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was looking to accomplish, he just needed to do something. In his restless circuit of the apartment, the notebook fluttered from its place on the nightstand and caught Joseph’s attention. His name was written at the top of the page in bold capitals.

_Joseph,_

_Didn’t want to wake you, just wanted to let you know I left for work. Make yourself at home._

_-Sebastian_

Joseph swallowed thickly and put the notebook back on the nightstand with a gulp of air, as if he could quell panic like a case of the hiccups.

Slowing himself by sheer force of will, Joseph tried to sit quietly in the living room as if he belonged there. He turned the TV on, only to switch it off immediately when the tinny sitcom laughter blared into the room and startled him. Silence folded around Joseph like a crushing physical force.

He sat at the edge of the couch and held his head in his hands, feeling the twinge of an oncoming headache. Why had Sebastian left him a note at all? It felt almost ominous, like a very carefully veiled threat that Joseph just hadn’t cracked yet.

The walls around him felt wrong; they seemed to stretch higher and tilt closer every moment, caging Joseph in. This was a prison. What if he left? Could he leave?

Joseph felt breathless, drowning in the force of how badly he wanted to leave.

He ran to the door and tested the doorknob, but learning that it could be unlocked didn’t mollify him. The curtained windows gaped at him like shut eyes; everything was spangled in eyes, watching him. He couldn’t leave through the front door. What if someone saw him?

Worse, what if they told Sebastian?

Shivering with barely-contained hysteria, Joseph bolted into the bedroom and threw the window open.

-

The stairs creaked under Sebastian’s heavy climb upward, and he leaned his whole body against the door to push it open.

Covering up a case that he would never technically be able to “solve” was its own special variety of exhausting. Without turning Joseph in, which was out of the question no matter what Juli said, the two of them had to come up with some kind of convincing excuse. A series of convincing excuses, with the appearance of facts to back them.

It added up to piles of paperwork and hours they wasted chasing ghost leads that they’d invented. Now they could only hope that they’d left it in a state for the case to go quietly cold, unnoticed.

Sebastian paused at the kitchen table, dropping his keys and swallowing down the fluttering feeling in his stomach. It was the first time in years that he’d come home to something other than an empty apartment, and the thrill he felt may have been as much fear as it was…excitement? Relief? He didn’t know what to call it.

“Joseph?”

Sebastian walked slowly, trying not to startle him. He glanced into the rooms as he passed, turning into the bedroom.

“There you are-“

Joseph lifted his head to look at him, his eyes fever-bright. Sebastian startled at the menacingly empty expression and the slow movements Joseph took to unfold himself from where he’d crouched on the floor.

“Whoa. You okay?” Sebastian said.

Joseph stood up in that unnerving automatic fashion and Sebastian looked around the room, trying to find some environmental clue that would tell him what was wrong. A shaft of sunlight fell across the floor, flickering in the flapping curtain. Sebastian felt a cold wash of realization alongside the window’s breeze as he turned back to Joseph, finally seeing the ugly burn that spread along Joseph’s right forearm and hand.

“Jesus, what the fuck happened?” Sebastian yelped, snapping the curtain closed before he rushed to guide Joseph out of the room.

That seemed to be the magic action that brought Joseph back to reality, because before Sebastian’s hand could touch Joseph’s shoulder, his vision blurred and he hit the floor. He could already feel a bruise forming on his shoulder, and his vision swam as struggled up; he saw Joseph standing over him, his face contorted with confusion and fear.

“Sebastian?” Joseph spoke as though he were worried he might be hallucinating.

Sebastian tried to roll the pain out of his shoulder and sat up slowly, holding his hands out in surrender.

“Hey, it’s Sebastian, it’s just me. I just got home from work, and I came in to check on you. I’m sorry I scared you.”

Joseph grabbed Sebastian’s hand and hauled him to his feet, wincing at the pain in his burned limb. Sebastian reached out to take Joseph’s arm and then snatched it back, hovering uncertainly. Joseph flinched and curled around the arm protectively, staring at Sebastian as if he’d have to start begging for his life at any moment.

“May I?” Sebastian said.

Joseph nodded.

Sebastian took Joseph’s arm carefully, turning it wherever it looked safe to touch and wincing sympathetically at how raw and painful it looked. “What the fuck happened, man?”

Joseph shook his head.

“Okay. I’m going to take you into the bathroom so I can wrap this up, is that okay?”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child.”

“Sorry. You just knocked me into the floor; I was operating under the assumption that you might be a little freaked out.”

Joseph bit his lip and relaxed, letting Sebastian guide him by the shoulder. “Okay, fair point.”

Sebastian sat him down on the tiled floor before sitting close to him, clicking the first-aid kit open. He gestured for Joseph to hold his arm out. “So, do you wanna talk about it?”

“No,” Joseph said. He hissed as Sebastian poured antiseptic onto the raw flesh and patted it dry. “I’m…sorry. About punching you.”

“It’s alright. Seems like you didn’t have a great day, honestly.” Sebastian cocked his head and smiled up at Joseph. “Hey, do you even need antiseptic? Can dead people get infections?”

He was proud of the smile that teased out of Joseph.

“Y’know, that’s a good question,” Joseph said.

“Seriously thought,” Sebastian said, winding clean linen strips around Joseph’s arm, “what’s the protocol for this? Do these burns heal?”

Joseph shrugged. “Eventually.”

He pulled up his other sleeve to display a jagged swath of whitened scar along his left shoulder. Sebastian winced; how could he have fucked a guy like, three times without noticing something as obvious as that?

Sebastian trailed his thumb along the scar with an almost apologetic expression. Joseph leaned into the touch and smiled the restrained way that suggested he didn’t want anyone to know he was experiencing a moment of levity. Sebastian felt helpless; he just wanted to something to help, but he didn’t know what else he had to offer.

“Oh,” Sebastian said, slipping hi hand to stroke Joseph’s back in a comforting way. “Is this something blood might help with?”

Joseph’s eyes went wide and he shook his head slowly. “Ah, I…don’t know. Maybe? I’ve never had a chance to test that idea.”

“Why don’t you try it? That burn must hurt something fierce.”

“That hardly seems fair, Sebastian. I couldn’t ask you to do that for what, a third day in a row? It’s too much.”

“You know, I hear some humans eat several times a day. I myself have been known to indulge in three meals daily, in fact,” Sebastian said drily.

Joseph rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t work that way and you know it."

“I don’t know it, and you don’t know it either. You’re a terrible vampire.”

Joseph shoved him playfully, his laughter coming easily now. Sebastian grinned and unbuttoned his shirt, tossing it aside. It had been a while since he’d had a reason to feel self conscious, but the distracted way Joseph looked him over made him flush with warm embarrassment.

“Go on, pick a spot. Just not the neck this time; I know it’s more fun that way, but I can’t risk it showing up at work.”

Joseph looked away guiltily. Sebastian wondered if he was feeling badly about the simple act of feeding, or just that Sebastian had called him out for having a thing for neck-biting. He thrust his arm into Joseph’s field of vision.

Joseph took it carefully, like he was afraid it would break. “You’re sure?”

Sebastian nodded, and before he completed the gesture he felt the piercing burn at his bicep. He hissed a breath in and closed his eyes, swallowing back the way it goaded heat to could low in his belly. Joseph was focused, hungry, and desperate. It was in no way an amorous condition.

Blood tickled its’ way down Sebastian’s arm and he focused on thoughts about his boss chewing with his mouth open, or the way Juli would look at him if she were to walk through the door. That thought worked well enough, dousing any lust he may have felt.

He didn’t know how long Joseph had latched onto him, he only knew his vision was starting to tilt lazily by the time the vampire pulled away. Joseph wiped blood from his mouth like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Sebastian blinked, leaning back and trying to get his bearings when he felt a hand against his crotch.

He looked up, startled. Joseph crept to him on all floors; his hands slid up Sebastian’s thighs to palm awkwardly at his half-hard cock. However much Sebastian’s lower functioning approved, the action scraped at his mind like nails against a chalkboard. The scene was all wrong- Joseph’s movements were heavy, automated like when he’d found him dazed in the bedroom. Worst of all was the flat look in his eyes, absent of any of the half-lidded lust Sebastian had reveled in before.

Joseph wasn’t looking at him at all; he stared at the punctures on Sebastian’s arm as if he were meditating while mimicking the approximate correct motions of sensuality. It made Sebastian’s guts churn.

He took Joseph’s shoulders and maneuvered the man off of him gently. The wounded expression that flitted across Joseph’s face twisted Sebastian’s chest with guilt.

“Hey, what’re you doing?” Sebastian said, hushed and unsteady.

“You seemed into it,” Joseph mumbled, staring at the ground. “I figured I’d…take care of it.”

Sebastian flopped onto his side on the cool tiled floor, feeling the way it seemed to shrink and spin beneath him. “That’s not your responsibility, man. It just…y’know. It happens.”

Joseph watched him, looking more and more tormented until Sebastian pulled him down, shimmied closer and rested his forehead against Joseph’s collarbone.

“Sebastian, we’re lying on the bathroom floor.”

“Yeah?”

“Are we supposed to be on the bathroom floor?”

“We can be wherever we want to be,” Sebastian said hazily.

“Shit. I took too much, didn’t I?”

“Nah,” Sebastian said, “I just want to lay here with you for a bit. That’s all.”

Joseph sighed, petting Sebastian’s hair apologetically. It made the skin on the back of Sebastian’s neck tingle pleasantly, sending a shiver of contentment down his back. He let out a quiet, rumbling grunt and buried his nose against Joseph’s chest.

He felt rather than heard Joseph chuckle.

“I didn’t know dogs could purr,” he said.

“Not purring,” Sebastian grumbled, “I-“

He was interrupted by Joseph’s fingers skimming his temples and drawing slowly down the back of his neck, resuming that pleasurable buzz. He rumbled an appreciative noise again.

Sebastian didn’t hear whatever Joseph said then, he just closed his eyes and breathed in the exhilarating scent of Joseph as he faded into sleep.

 


	8. Chapter 8

“Fuck,” Joseph mumbled, trying in vain to wrap his arms more tightly around Sebastian’s bulk as he seemed to catch on a crooked panel of wood. He deposited Sebastian onto his bed in an unceremonious heap, watching with mild amazement as he breathed peacefully, still asleep. Joseph pulled the covers up and over him.

He patted Sebastian’s stubbled cheek affectionately, smiling stupidly at the way the man’s tongue poked out comically as he drooled onto the sheet. His smile faded as the calm that Sebastian’s sleepy weight seemed to magically transfer to Joseph began to ebb away, like a physical loss. Something cold and heavy was already lapping at Joseph’s insides again.

How could he have fucked up this badly? Sebastian wasn’t just any old donor- he was _super-human for fucks sake_ \- and Joseph had still managed to drink the man into a dull stupor. It was the worst combination of poor self control and selfishness he could imagine; he felt like he could crawl out of his miserable skin, the memory of Sebastian shoving Joseph’s awkward hands off of him replaying until he could almost feel it, the ghost of a sensation again and again.

It was the only thing Joseph could think to repay him. Wasn’t it what he wanted?

He’d probably just been too out of it, Joseph figured. Why shouldn’t he have gone for, after all? He had yet to show any developing disgust of Joseph, and he’d taken some pretty egregious liberties with Sebastian’s body, after all. He’d come to his senses, collect on the offer soon enough.

The thought had come calm and cool, but as soon as it registered Joseph could feel that panic creeping higher, from his stomach to his throat.

It had just been…he glanced to his bandaged arm, where the stinging pain had subsided. He hadn’t needed to prove Sebastian’s theory there; he had known well enough that it would work. It had just been so hard to restrain himself through that haze of pain, and the way it made his whole body throb with hunger.

Joseph could feel himself racing back towards panic again, the same panic that had driven him like a blind animal and seared his arm. Now, cool night air drafted through the window, and the opportunity was there again.

 _Get out_. Joseph placed his hands against the cool glass, testing it. _Get out if his life before you fuck it up any worse. Before you kill him. Before he kills you._

Joseph hurried into his jacket and boots, pulling the hood over his head. He pulled the window up incrementally, trying to keep the noise as low as possible.

 _You don’t have to be happy_ , Joseph thought bitterly, _but you can still be free_.

Then why, he asked himself as he stared sullenly at Sebastian, did he feel so goddamn guilty? So much more guilty, in fact, than he had before? It was a half-second that made him question if he was really escaping some kind of cage at all.

“The best kind of captive animal,” Joseph whispered through gritted teeth as he threw the window fully open, “is one that puts itself back in its own cage.” He thought he remembered his aunt saying something like that, about horses, or dogs, or something, and it seemed fitting.

Sebastian struggled awake and blinked at Joseph, whose leg was poised to spring out the window.

“Sorry,” Joseph whispered.

Sebastian frowned, cocked his head to the side and flopped onto his back. “Careful out there,” he said, “Sunrise’ll be at 6AM, give or take.”

Joseph worked his mouth silently, trying to think of anything to say to that. Instead, he dropped down from the windowsill, and took off into the night.

-

Autumn wind stung at Joseph’s exposed skin, almost comforting in its familiar chill. He thought he might have preferred the warmthof Sebastian’s apartment (and the warmth of Sebastian, for that matter), but he pulled his jacket tighter. This, he knew exactly how to deal with.

It was the cold comfort, literally, of freedom.

Joseph made his way downtown, back to where he’d run into Sebastian for the first time. He blended in and out of the crowds that drifted from bars to parties and back again, watched as they broke into smaller huddles of people and found new ones in a shifting constellation of social intricacy. 

He caught himself balling his fists in his pockets, grit tin his teeth whenever those blazingly warm bodies bumped against him. Still, it was easier to be around them now than any time he could remember. He watched them, almost enraptured by how easy it was to study their faces without the pulse to hurt them, to kill them. A girl clapped him on the shoulder, peering under his hood with amused curiosity- Joseph stumbled backward away from her, drawing his shoulders up against himself as if he could make himself into a shield.

He must have been quite the sight, standing on the sidewalk gaping at people. Joseph stole a glance backwards where the girl was still watching him slink away, her hand frozen in midair.

The sight of it pierced through him with a pang of sadness. It used to be like this, he thought, and he tried to recall when it was true; when he’d been just another mundane person in that crowd. The memories were like a flickering movie reel he could barely remember; sunlit, washed out and dreamlike. Given a few more decades, he wondered if there’d be anything of them left.

Those sullen thoughts dragged him through the metal gates of the city’s large main park, casting prison-bar shadows across him by the glaring orange spill of streetlight. He’d spent most of his nights hunkered down here in some stream-bridge culvert or the other, running from curious drifters and singeing himself when he lost track of the daylight.

By the time he’d sorted through the meager remains of his memories, Joseph found himself facing that same bridge, and threw himself onto a park bench to stare up at the pinpoints of light in the cold, velvet-black sky.

He folded his arms behind his head and sighed.

 _You could just stay here ’til morning_ , a voice in the back of his head crooned to him.

Joseph had talked to himself a lot. He talked himself through the interminable loneliness of his existence, talked himself in and out of suicide in frustrated loops. No matter how bitter it got, it had always made him feel a little better to hear that voice, to know he was still in control of himself, no matter how tenuously.

Well…it _used_ to make him feel better. It occurred to Joseph that he hadn’t conducted that little ritual in the last few days, and in retrospect the absence was glaring. Now, his own voice felt like an unpleasant itch in his mind; a needling reminder that he had, however briefly, found someone else to talk to. Someone he’d liked to talk to. Someone he couldn’t imagine telling him to let himself burn to ash in the middle of this shitty park.

“This is stupid,” Joseph whispered aloud, sitting up and drawing his knees to his chest. The suggestion had started to chime in circles around him: _stay ’til morning. Solve this problem, once and for all._

The need to escape had been bone deep and overwhelming, but now that he was out again, really on his own, Joseph could only ruminate on that warm little apartment, the muscular bulk of Sebastian splayed out against him under layers of blankets, and the pleasant heat of Sebastian’s hands in his wet hair; the steaming box of the shower stall.

 _It was a cage_ , something protested. _It was a nice cage, though_ , Joseph thought.

Nausea stung at his gut and he rubbed his face tiredly. Maybe it was just the physical warmth that he was missing; the cold settled in bitterly, making him feel damp and achy. He stood up, rubbing his hands together as if he still had a heart to pump the blood through and froze at the glint of something- something shining red and gold from the black treeline that bordered the park’s forested center.

He squinted, making out the shape that moved behind those flashing eyes. The shape shuddered under his stare and shrieked a long, garbled howling sound, a sound like a dying hound dog that made Joseph shrink away instinctively as if he were some kind of prey animal. _Was that a wolf?_

_Sebastian?_

The creature turned to him as if it could hear him thinking, slinking forward on unnaturally sloping limbs.

A surge of righteous anger overrode Joseph’s fear and he pitched forward, stomping with grim determination towards the creature’s shambling bulk across the expanse of grass.

“I knew you were full of shit, Sebastian, you weren’t going to let me leave-“

The words died in Joseph’s throat as the thing crept into the lurid yellow light of a streetlamp. It was a werewolf- probably, anyway, granted Joseph had only ever seen one- and it definitely was not Sebastian. This wolf-man, still almost a flat shadow with its’ thick, matted black fur, was only recognizable as something other than a wolf by the twisted, blunt facial features and the intelligence that glittered coldly behind its orange eyes. Well, that and the size- Joseph had never seen any real wolves before, but something told him they didn’t get that big.

He watched with a detached sort of concern as it revealed its teeth in a dripping snarl. It was the sound that propelled Joseph backward, a gravelly, sharp growl that rose to drown out the ambient night sounds. A sweep of cold air was the only thing that told him that the creature had lunged as he turned away and ran.

He didn’t bother looking back, and he didn’t have to- in the space of blinking, the thing was in front of him again, claws spraying loam as it skidded and threw its monstrous body at Joseph again. He tried to sprint forward and threw himself into a clumsy roll. He felt teeth pop the fabric of his jacket sleeve open and score the skin, the jaws making a horrid snapping sound as he rolled out of biting range.

The wolf’s head pummeled between Joseph’s shoulders, shoving him face-first to the ground. He could feel his body buckle under the huge, clawed hand it pressed to him and he thrashed frantically to roll onto his back. Claws scraped him as he did, the vice grip threatening to crack his ribs like breadsticks.

 _Okay_ , he thought, kicking desperately to try and gain himself any space, _I guess this is how I die? It’s not what I would have picked_.

He felt his boot connect with the werewolf’s soft belly and kicked it with whatever energy he could muster up in an adrenaline-fueled gamble. He could feel something give, sickeningly, and with a grating scream the werewolf reeled back and unpinned Joseph. He scrabbled up, gasping at the jolts of pain that lanced through him as he got his legs under him and sprinted off.

Now he did look back to see the drooling werewolf gnash its teeth in his direction. He could only describe the sound it made as a roar, which was more of a warning than he needed. He kept moving, pressing himself to go a little faster, for a little farther, whipping up whorls of trash and dried leaves in his wake.

He couldn’t stop and worry about whether or not he was making a scene; attracting attention. He didn’t stop running until he was halfway up the rocking fire escape of a familiar apartment building, flat against the grated ground underneath the staircase.

It was a while before he was satisfied that no enormous black wolves had followed him. Joseph crept quietly up the rattling fire escape until he was looking into the window of Sebastian’s bedroom, glancing between it and the empty street. With a huff, he dropped to sit with his legs dangling off the escape and fished a cigarette and lighter- both pilfered from Sebastian- out of his pocket.

Joseph breathed the acrid smoke in gratefully. The nicotine wouldn’t have much of an effect of his halted lungs, but the gesture was both familiar to him and comforting. He focused on the warm smell of the smoke and the cigarette against his lips, tried to quiet down the way his mind seemed to spin in confusion.

Confusion about whether or not he was going to go back into that apartment like a homesick dog, about that other, feral werewolf out there with a mouthful of his jacket and what it meant, about what it meant about him and his own pathetic situation that right then, he wanted nothing more badly than to go back into that apartment.

 _Pitiful_. Joseph flicked the cigarette stub away and crawled through the open window.

 _I’m just going to stay one more night_ , Joseph thought. _I’ve got to tell him about that other werewolf, got to let him know. I’ve got to say goodbye, repay him for the hospitality. Just one more night._


End file.
